Trailheads

Posted by on Jun 8, 2020 in | Comments Off on Trailheads With more than 20 sites and museums on PHMC’s Pennsylvania Trails of History, each year is full of events, tours, programs and visits. Historical milestones are commemorated — such as the 75th anniversary of the D-Day landings during World War II or the centennial of Pennsylvania’s ratification of the 19th Amendment — and “everyday” history is remembered in artifact exhibits, cooking...
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Trailheads

Posted by on Feb 25, 2020 in | Comments Off on Trailheads History never truly sleeps on the Pennsylvania Trails of History, but winter is generally a slower season with reduced schedules and fewer programs and events. Charter Day, the celebration of Pennsylvania’s founding (the second Sunday in March), is the traditional start to our spring season. As the weather warms, activity increases at the sites and museums. The landscape loses its dull winter...
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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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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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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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A Salute to the Bicentennial of the Keystone State

Posted by on Nov 29, 2013 in | Comments Off on A Salute to the Bicentennial of the Keystone State The current Bicentennial celebration commemorates not the birth of the United States, but the proclama­tion of thirteen British-American colonies that were “free and independent states” as of July 4, 17.76. When they formed a loose compact in 1761, their articles of confederation declared that “each state retains its sover­eignty, freedom and independence.” The...
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The Valley That Changed the World: Visiting the Drake Well Museum

Posted by on Nov 26, 2013 in | Comments Off on The Valley That Changed the World: Visiting the Drake Well Museum “They’ve struck oil!” They were only three words, but they thundered triumphantly throughout the valley along northwestern Pennsylvania’s Oil Creek during the days following the long-anticipated breakthrough – one that would change the world forever – on an otherwise quiet Saturday in August 1859. To many it was a miracle, one on which great fortunes would be...
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The Lady and the Titan

Posted by on Nov 25, 2013 in | Comments Off on The Lady and the Titan Before the creation of the Pulitzer Prize, long before Woodward and Bernstein, there was Pennsylvania’s own Ida M. Tarbell (1857-1944). Best known as the muckraking journalist who single-handedly took on the mighty John D. Rockefeller (1839-1937), she was among the most feared and admired women of her time. Writing during the Progressive Era, an age of hope and reform running roughly from...
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Pennsylvania Heritage Society Newsletter

Posted by on Nov 20, 2013 in | Comments Off on Pennsylvania Heritage Society Newsletter Topics in the Summer 2008 Newsletter: Signature Series Tour: New Deal Post Office Murals New PHS Website New PHS Board of Directors Members Calendar for July – September 2008 2008 Penn Ambassadors Support in the Field Welcome New PHS Members  ...
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