When you think of oil towns and the quest for black gold, Texas likely comes to mind. After all, it's the largest producer of crude oil in the U.S. However, Pennsylvania experienced the first oil rush ...

A historical marker for Pithole City sits along a quiet road in Cornplanter Township, Venango County, Pa. The city was once a booming oil town after the discovery of oil and the site of the first ...

PITHOLE CITY, Pa. — For the briefest of moments, this unfortunately named spot was the center of a new industry that would quite literally change the world. But the oil discovered at Pithole City ...

Tanks holding oil in Pithole, Pa., in 1868. Samuel Van Syckel built his first pipeline over just five weeks in 1865. At 2 inches in diameter, it was tiny by modern standards — but it was an ...

Pithole, the vanished city a story of the early days of the petroleum industry Smithsonian Libraries and Archives ...

Pithole City, Pennsylvania — "Pap, I think you had better come see Pithole." T.B. Whitacre penned those words to his grandfather on July 30, 1865. In January, just seven months earlier, an oil strike ...

Not far from Erie lies the birthplace of the American oil industry. Watch and learn. Not far from Erie lies the birthplace of the American oil industry making millionaires of some while killed others.

PITHOLE CITY, Pennsylvania -- "Pap, I think you had better come see Pithole." T.B. Whitacre penned those words to his grandfather on July 30, 1865. In January, just seven months earlier, an oil strike ...