Dr. Emory Kemp, then Director of the West Virginia University’s Institute for the History of Technology and Industrial Archaeology, conducts a six-week field school at Fairbank Oil, documenting the technology. He returns for another field school in 2001 with representatives from the Canada Museum of Science and Technology, Parks Canada and others. Dr. Kemp was among the first to say that Fairbank Oil would meet the criteria for a UNESCO World Heritage Site.