Pithole City

Holmden Street, 1865. Drake Well Museum

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 what is now a quiet uninhabited place was for a short time in the 1860s a bustling boomtown populated by as many as 15,000 people. In his 1972 book Pithole: The Vanished City, William C. Darrah described these occupants as “well-dressed gentlemen, not all of means, greasy oil men, dandies, roughs and toughs.” This “motley multitude” included “doctors, lawyers, merchants, bankers, carpenters, clerks, drifters, confidence men, thugs.” In addition, there were “prostitutes [who] set up a thriving business.” To serve these migrants, the borough included Methodist Episcopal and Catholic churches (as well as a never-completed United Presbyterian church), two banks, two telegraph offices, a waterworks, a fire company, grocery stores, saloons, hotels, hardware stores, machine shops and houses of ill repute. Pithole City even had its own newspaper, the Pithole Daily Record, published 1865-68.

What caused this rapid development was the legacy of Edwin L. Drake (1819–80), who struck oil with the nation’s first successful well on August 27, 1859, near Titusville. Nearly six years later, on January 7, 1865, a well drilled by I.N. Frazier and James Faulkner on the Holmden Farm near what became Pithole City, Venango County, struck oil and became the most productive gusher in the area: the Frazier well. It was later followed by the nearby Homestead well and then several others. As a result of these finds, Pithole City was founded and grew quickly. By May 1865 the town consisted of 22 streets with 500 building lots. For expediency, wood was the prime building material.

Grant Well office, 1865. Drake Well Museum

In August 1865 the first portent of decline came when the Homestead well stopped flowing and had to be pumped. Soon after, several fires destroyed many of the wooden buildings. By November 1865 the Frazier well went dry. Approximately two months later production from the other wells in the area greatly declined. Within four years the town was virtually deserted. In 1877 Pithole’s borough charter was revoked, and two years later the land was sold to Venango County. The town remained virtually forgotten until 1957, when it was purchased by James Stevenson, who cleared the site of vegetation and put up the interpretive guideposts. Stevenson, publisher of the Titusville Herald at the time and former commissioner and chairman for PHMC, donated the property to the state in 1961. It is currently managed by PHMC’s Drake Well Museum.

How can Pithole City be listed in the National Register when there appears to be nothing left? In addition to aboveground resources, the National Register recognizes archaeological sites, so while the only visible remains are cellar holes and traces of the streets, there is still a wealth of cultural material underground. The cellar holes likely contain artifacts related to the everyday life of the city’s inhabitants. In fact The State Museum’s archaeological collection includes artifacts such as ceramics, glass bottles, nails, tools and leather goods from excavations undertaken at the site in the late 1960s and early 1970s. From the historical record we know in general what life was like in Pithole City. By adding the archaeological record, we gain a much deeper understanding of that “motley multitude.” We can learn what they ate and drank, what medicines they took and other information often missing from the historical record. Pithole City is proof that in Pennsylvania a place in time is not always found in a book or a building; sometimes it is right below our feet.

For more information on visiting Pithole City, contact Drake Well Museum at 814-827-2797 or visit the Drake Well Museum website.

Recent listings in the National Register of Historic Places include Duquesne Brewing Company, Pittsburgh, Allegheny County; Gosztonyi Savings and Trust, Bethlehem, Northampton County; Stewart Farmstead, Hatfield Township, Montgomery County; and Wyoming Central Office of the Bell Telephone Company, Philadelphia.

Keith Heinrich is Historic Preservation Specialist in PHMC’s Bureau for Historic Preservation.