Editing Digboi (section)

==Etymology==
In 1867 Italian Engineers, commissioned by the Assam Railways and Trading Company, to build a railway line from Dibrugarh to Margherita (Headquarters of Assam Railways and Trading Company) accidentally discovered oil at Digboi around 10 miles from Margherita. 

<br />"'Dig boy, dig', shouted the Canadian engineer, W L Lake, at his men as they watched elephants emerging out of the dense forest with oil stains on their feet".<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.thehindubusinessline.com/todays-paper/tp-others/article29047803.ece|title=Digboi, 100, still alive and kicking|website=@businessline|date=16 December 2001 }}</ref>
This is possibly the most distilled – though fanciful – version of the legend explaining the siting and naming of Digboi. Two events separated by seven years have become fused, but although neither is likely to be provable, such evidence that does exist appears sufficiently detailed to be credible. <br />Various web sites offer variations on the elephant's foot story, a consensus of which would be that engineers extending the Dibru-Sadiya railway line to Ledo for the Assam Railways and Trading Company (AR&TC) in 1882 were using elephants for haulage and noticed that the mud on one pachyderm's feet smelled of oil. Retracing the trail of footprints, they found oil seeping to the surface. One of the engineers, the Englishman (not Canadian) Willie Leova Lake, was an 'oil enthusiast' and persuaded the company to drill a well. 

<br />[[Oil India]]'s web site contains no history of the Assam Oil Company's origins, but an earlier incarnation claimed that the "decision to drill was taken by the Directors of the AR&T Co. in 1888 under the direction of Mr. W L Lake, an employee of the company and an oil enthusiast".<ref>url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080127142641/http://www.oil-india.com/company.aspx</ref> Once the project had been approved, Lake assembled equipment, boilers, and local labour, and engaged elephants to haul the machinery to the site. The first well was started in September 1889, but an encouraging first strike at {{convert|178|ft|m}} turned out to be a small pocket, and drilling recommenced. This continued until November 1890 when the well was completed at a total depth of {{convert|662|ft|m}}, and it was during this extended period of drilling that Assam Oil Company's magazine adverts placed the legend of Lake exhorting one or more of his labourers to "Dig, boy!".