Drake Well Museum
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| Drake Well Museum, Pennsylvania, USA | |
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| Location: | Venango County, Pennsylvania, USA |
| Nearest city: | Titusville, Pennsylvania |
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| Established: | 1931 |
| Governing body: | Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission |
The Drake Well Museum is located along the banks of Oil Creek in Venango County, Pennsylvania in the United States. The museum collects, preserves, and interprets the founding of the oil industry in the state of Pennsylvania and its growth into a global enterprise. The site features the oil well drilled by "Col." Edwin Drake and working oil field equipment. The museum includes indoor and outdoor exhibits and houses a library of over 2,500 titles, over 1,000 cubic feet of manuscript material and a photographic collection with over 10,600 images. Programs include the Fall Gas-Up engine show, a spring Heritage Lecture Series, Heritage School Tours, Summer History Camps and the Nitroglycerine Show. Visitor services include orientation film, guided tours, a museum store and more. Drake Well Museum is administered by the Pennsylvania Historical & Museum Commission. Nearby are Oil Creek State Park and the Oil Creek and Titusville Railroad.
[edit] History
The history of Oil Creek Valley and the land surrounding is tied largely to the rise and fall of the oil industry in northwestern Pennsylvania. What is now a largely wild second growth forest with several cold water fishery creeks flowing through it, was once the site of the vast oil industry that dramatically changed the landscape and water quality of the Oil Creek Valley.
Titusville, to the north of Drake Well Museum, was a slow-growing and peaceful community, lying along the banks of Oil Creek until the 1850s. Lumber was the principal industry with at least 17 sawmills in the area.
Oil was known to exist here, but there was no practical way to extract it. Its main use to that time had been as a medicine for both animals and humans. In the late 1850s Seneca Oil Company (formerly the Pennsylvania Rock Oil Company) sent its manager, Colonel Edwin L. Drake, to start drilling on a piece of leased land just south of Titusville, near what is now Drake Well Museum. Drake hired a salt well driller, William A. Smith, in the summer of 1859. After many difficulties, they finally drilled a commercially successful well on August 27. It was an event that changed the world, beginning with the surrounding vicinity.
Teamsters were needed immediately to transport the oil to markets. Barges were filled with oil and sent down Oil Creek to Oil City on the Allegheny River. There the oil was transferred to steamships and sent onto Pittsburgh. Transportation methods improved, and in 1862 the Oil Creek & Titusville Railroad was built between Titusville and Corry, where freight was transferred to other, larger, east-west rail lines. In 1865, pipelines were laid directly next to the rail line and the demand for teamsters practically ended. The next year the railroad line was extended south to Petroleum Centre and Oil City. The Union City & Titusville Railroad was built in 1865, which became part of the Philadelphia & Erie Railroad in 1871. That fall President Ulysses S. Grant visited Titusville to view the booming oil industry.
Other oil-related businesses quickly were built in the area. Eight refineries were built between 1862 and 1868. Drilling tools were needed and several iron works were built. Titusville grew from 250 residents to 10,000 almost overnight and in 1866 it incorporated as a city. The first oil millionaire, a resident of Titusville, was Jonathan Watson who owned the land where Drake's well was drilled. The same land is now part of Oil Creek State Park and the Drake Well Museum.
Fire was always a concern around oil and one of the worst fires was on June 11, 1880. What came to be known as "Black Friday" happened when almost 300,000 barrels of oil burned after an oil tank was hit by lightning. The fire raged for three days until it finally was brought under control. Although the oil was valued at $2 million, there was no loss of life. Another fire occurred on June 5, 1892, when Oil Creek flooded and a tank of benzine overturned. The benzine ignited and in the ensuing explosions 60 men, women, and children died. Another lightning strike in 1894 resulted in 27,000 barrels lost in a fire. Oil production peaked the late 1880s and has declined greatly since, although a few operating wells are still located in the park.
[edit] References
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Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission |
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| Museums and Archive |
Brandywine Battlefield | Bushy Run Battlefield | Cornwall Iron Furnace | Conrad Weiser Homestead | Daniel Boone Homestead | Drake Well Museum | Eckley Miners' Village | Erie Maritime Museum & U.S. Brig Niagara | Ephrata Cloister | Fort Pitt Museum | Graeme Park | Hope Lodge & Mather Mill | Joseph Priestley House | Landis Valley Museum | Old Economy Village | Pennsbury Manor | Pennsylvania Anthracite Heritage Museum | Pennsylvania Lumber Museum | Pennsylvania Military Museum | Pennsylvania State Archives & State Museum of Pennsylvania | Railroad Museum of Pennsylvania | Scranton Iron Furnaces | Somerset Historical Center | Washington Crossing Historic Park |
