Pithole City

Posted by on Apr 12, 2016 in | Comments Off on 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...
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John Wilkes Booth and the Land of Oil

Posted by on Nov 30, 2013 in | Comments Off on John Wilkes Booth and the Land of Oil Beginning about 10:25 on the evening of April 14, 1865, the time and date President Abraham Lincoln was assassinated in Washington’s Ford Theatre by John Wilkes Booth, a mass of information including evidence and myths has accumulated regarding the act and those connected with it, particularJy about the assassin him­self. John Wilkes Booth was the ninth of ten children born to Junius...
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The World Petroleum Industry: It All Started in Pennsylvania

Posted by on Nov 30, 2013 in | Comments Off on The World Petroleum Industry: It All Started in Pennsylvania The modern petroleum industry is a vast and complex association of multinational corpora­tions, producing countries, consumers and other inter­acting elements. The petroleum milieu is often identified and equated with the largest oil companies, “the seven sis­ters”: Exxon, Royal Dutch Shell, Gulf, British Petroleum, Mobil, Standard of California, and Texaco. As if to empha­size the...
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An Epic in the Making

Posted by on Nov 30, 2013 in | Comments Off on An Epic in the Making “It’s exciting. It’s moving. It’s surprising. It’s suspenseful It’s filled with men who became heroes, and women who became legends. It’s an epic 300 years in the making. It’s Pennsylvania history. Experience it. It’s too good to miss.”   Motivation is tough to describe, even tougher to define. It’s the stuff acting is made...
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Unlikely Capitalists: Harmonists as Textile Manufacturers

Posted by on Nov 30, 2013 in | Comments Off on Unlikely Capitalists: Harmonists as Textile Manufacturers At the end of the eighteenth century, George Rapp (1757-1847) planned to create a religious community in the wilderness as near to heaven on earth as was humanly possible. He succeeded to a large extent, but in the process achieved a different kind of success: he created one of the largest textile manufacturing enter­prises in the Pennsylvania of his time. While still in his native Württemburg,...
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The Last Frontier: Venango County Indians, Oil, Ghost Towns

Posted by on Nov 30, 2013 in | Comments Off on The Last Frontier: Venango County Indians, Oil, Ghost Towns Venango County. Its name is derivation of a the Seneca Indian word earliest for explorers “French and Creek.” Its earliest explorers and settlers were the French, shortly followed by the English. At one time, the territory was claimed simultaneously by France, and the colonies of Virginia and Pennsyl­vania. But Venango County’s rich history bespeaks vigorous pioneering a spirit...
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Pithole City: Boom Town Turned Ghost Town, An Interview with James B. Stevenson

Posted by on Nov 30, 2013 in | Comments Off on Pithole City: Boom Town Turned Ghost Town, An Interview with James B. Stevenson One hundred and twenty-five years ago this summer, the placid calm of northwestern Pennsylvania’s sparsely populated but panoramic vista was ruptured when “Colonel” Edwin L. Drake’s well coughed up rich, black crude oil on August 28, 1859. The following boom years of the oil industry gave rise to numerous towns and cities, some of which were short-lived ghost towns. The...
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The Call of the Clarion

Posted by on Nov 29, 2013 in | Comments Off on The Call of the Clarion To the eighteenth century French explorers, the river the Indians called Tobeco was Riviere au Fiel – the “River of Hate.” Pioneers know it as Toby or Stump Creek. In 1817 it was christened Clarion by road surveyors Daniel Stanard and David Lawson as they camped along its shores because the river’s clear, shrill sound reminded them of the medieval trumpet. The name of the...
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Almost on the Right Track: The Densmore Tank Car

Posted by on Nov 29, 2013 in | Comments Off on Almost on the Right Track: The Densmore Tank Car The successful drilling for petroleum in northwestern Pennsyl­vania exploded a speculative excitement on a national level not seen since the California Gold Rush a decade earlier. “Colonel” Edwin L. Drake’s modest well at Titusville stirred an oil fever that attracted shrewd fortune seekers, sharp traders and adventurers from all areas of the country. They began to assemble not...
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Crawford County: Welcoming the 21st Century

Posted by on Nov 29, 2013 in | Comments Off on Crawford County: Welcoming the 21st Century We passed over some good land since we eft Venango, and through several extensive and very rich meadows, one of which, I believe, was nearly four miles in length, and consid­erably wide in some places. Twenty-one year old George Washington, who would in time become a major landholder and land specula­tor, described Crawford County in 1753 as he carried a dispatch demanding the com­mander of the...
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