Pennsylvania Drilling Company’s history back the period of industrial growth in the United States during the early 1900’s. Industry needed more accurate information about the earth, water sources and heavier foundations.
Our predecessor, the J. A. Brennan Drilling Co. was founded in 1900 in the Scranton-Wilkes Barre area, was focused on coal drilling and mineral exploration. In 1915, it moved headquarters to Pittsburgh and changed the name to Pennsylvania Drilling Company.
The company expanded into mineral exploration, large diameter core drilling or “Calyx” system, foundation drilling, mine and borehole photography, mine grouting and water well drilling. Environmental, HAZMAT drilling for sampling and monitoring wells became a significant portion of the drilling business in the late 1980’s and we retain that capability today.
In 1947, the company introduced a complete line of drilling tools and equipment under the name of “PENNDRILL”. By 1950, we had developed “thin wall” diamond bits for masonry drilling and increased our line of tools for the rapidly expanding soil mechanics and geotechnical industry. In 1989, we moved to our present manufacturing location in McKees Rocks, PA and began expanding our manufacturing capabilities with CNC lathes and a CNC Vertical machining center.
In 2007, our expanding manufacturing required us to move our central offices and contract drilling division to Imperial, PA. In 2009, we acquired manufacturing and fabrication facilities in Woodstock, Virginia for the manufacture of Colcrete, high-shear colloidal grouting equipment, material silos and construction tooling for the Heavy Civil and foundation industry.
This division was moved to Winchester, Virginia in 2012 where we manufacture and rent our mixers, silos and tooling. In 2021 Pennsylvania Drilling Company acquired the Colcrete Limited company in the U.K. and expanded our market presence to Europe.
