Professional team

The Oilers were preceded in minor league play by the Olean Refiners. Between 1908 and 1916, The Refiners played as members of the Class D level Interstate League.^[1][2]

The Oilers resumed minor league play, playing in the New York–Pennsylvania League from 1939 to 1951 and from 1955 to 1958. The league was known as the Pennsylvania–Ontario–New York League from 1939 to 1956. Their inaugural home game on 11 May 1939 was played in front of 3,300 spectators.^[3]

The Oilers were a minor league affiliate of the Brooklyn Dodgers from 1939 to 1948, the St. Louis Browns in 1949, and the Philadelphia Phillies from 1956 to 1958. The Oilers played their home games at Bradner Stadium.

The Oilers' president, Josephine Ross, was the only female president of an affiliated minor league team in 1959.^[4]

Collegiate summer team

Starting in 2012, the Olean Oilers name was revived as a member of the New York Collegiate Baseball League. The team began play in the summer of 2012, initially playing on the campus of Saint Bonaventure University before returning to a renovated Bradner Stadium in 2014; a crowd of nearly 2,000 fans watched the Oilers during their first game back at Bradner.^[5] In their fourth year of play as an amateur squad, the Oilers won the 2015 NYCBL championship; the next year, the team went on a 24-game winning streak near the beginning of the season, doubling the previous league record, en route to a league record 39 wins and a second consecutive championship, won before a league record 2,876 fans at Bradner. Despite concerns over competitive balance as well as admitted discussions with the Perfect Game Collegiate Baseball League, the Oilers have shown a general preference to stay in the NYCBL for 2017.^[6]