Drake Well Museum Launches Annual
School Heritage Program
School Tours in OCTOBER, click for Drake Well's website.
Oct, 2009     The little creek that roared serves as a History
lesson for Christian Life Academy students (right) during
Drake Well Museum's school tours. The oil museum at the
northern edge of  Venango Co.  celebrated the sesquicentennial
of the Oil Industry's birth, which began along Oil Creek on
August 27, 1859 when Col. Edwin Drake successfully drilled
the world's first oil well. His early attempts were referred to by
locals as "Drake's Folly," and they would frequently picnic
near the drilling site making fun of the former train conductor.
The laughter ceased when black gold began to flow from a
deposit 69 feet below the valley, and the boom towns of
northwestern PA quickly sprouted up along Oil Creek.
An actor reacts to a simulated nitro-glycerin explosion
during the Pyrotechnics Show (left). Next, students board
 the Oil Creek and Titusville Railroad.
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The sign above the museum's entrance alludes to it's international relevance. After
the secrets to drilling oil were discovered by Col. Drake and his compatriots,
emissaries from throughout the world began travelling to the Oil Region to learn
the mysteries of the new industry first-hand.
Thousands of students and their chaperones attend Drake Well Museum's School
Heritage Tours. The kids (below) try to warn the Pinkerton detectives that the
nitro-glycerin thief, Curly, is up to no good at the drilling site (r).
We now offer Fine Quality Prints. Click for our Photo Library.
The working steam
engine (left) is a
reproduction of the
steam engine believed
to have been used by
Col. Edwin L. Drake
to power his early oil
drills. A nearby wood
boiler runs on slab
wood, with a 500-
gallon watertank
providing the engine
that turns the
turbines, according to
operator Dale Keyes
of Titusville.
Premiere sponsor of this Story Page. Click their logo for ORA's
exciting OIL 150 sesquicentennial schedule and information
about their community development projects in the Oil  Region.
Students walk
through the open
doors of the Postal
Car aboard the
OC&T RR
(above), where
riders can purchase
refreshments and
mail letters from
the only locomotive
 post office in the
country.
"You Will Believe A Pig Can Fly" blared the headline of a local
publication. The Pyro Show includes a story from the early
days of oil, when a pig drank the volatile liquid nitro-glycerin
and was blasted a mighty distance.
The show (below) educates spectators on the dangers and
difficulties faced by the oil pioneers, who sometimes paid
dearly for their endeavors in the oil fields.
Reenactor Clark Hall high-fives Hope Papucci, a parent with Grover
Cleveland Elementary who volunteered to trigger a blast during the show.
Conductor Richard Roth of Waterford
greets students as they embark on their
train ride along Oil Creek. The trip takes
them through the hills and valleys of
northwestern PA, which were once
covered in wooden oil derricks as
countless prospectors rushed to the area
in the 1860s.
The Oil Creek and Titusville Railroad
was a crucial pipeline for the industry,
transporting oil, people and supplies to a
world thirsting for the new product. At
first, petroleum was mainly used for
lighting oil lamps, and is credited with
saving the whales during a time when
whale oil was used to provide the world
light in the darkness.  
Volunteer Chance Nirmaier (right
and left photos) leads a group of
schoolchildren from the museum
to the train platform, where the
OC&T has just arrived from
nearby Perry Street Station in
Titusville.