Pithole City

At first sight, there is not much to Pithole City 150 years after it was established. There are cellar holes, a grass-covered but visible street grid, a 1972 visitor center and interpretive guideposts. The property today looks much the same as when it was listed in the National Register of Historic Places on March 20, 1973, for its significance to industrial history. It is amazing to think that...
read more

Pithole

Pennsylvania’s oil boom began in Venango County, one-half mile south of Titusville, late in the afternoon ­of Saturday, August 27, 1859, when Edwin L. Drake (1819-1880) perfected a way to drill for oil and extract it horn the ground. Initially, production was centered in the valleys of Oil Creek and the Allegheny River. In 1865, Isaiah N. Frazier and James Faulkner, employees of a nearby...
read more