page_title: Titusville, Pennsylvania
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Titusville, Pennsylvania / History
caption_attribution_description: Illustration from the book Sketches in crude-oil; some accidents and incidents of the petroleum development in all parts of the globe, ... 3rd Edition. by McLaurin
context_page_description: Titusville is a city in the far east corner of Crawford County, Pennsylvania, United States. The population was 5,287 at the 2018 census. Titusville is known as the birthplace of the American oil industry and for a number of years, was the leading oil producing region in the world. Titusville was notable for its lumber industry, including 17 sawmills, as well as its plastic, and tool making industries.
context_section_description: The area was first settled in 1796 by Jonathan Titus. Within 14 years, others bought and improved land lying near his, along the banks of what is now Oil Creek. Titus named the village Edinburg(h), but as it grew, the settlers began to call the hamlet Titusville. The village was incorporated as a borough in 1849. It was a slow-growing community until the 1850s, when petroleum was discovered in the region.
  Oil was known to exist there, but there was no practical way to extract it. Its main use at 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 Col. Edwin L. Drake, to start drilling on a piece of leased land just south of Titusville, near what is now Oil Creek State Park. In the summer of 1859, Drake hired a salt well driller, William A. Smith. They had many difficulties but, on August 27, at the site of an oil spring just south of Titusville, they finally drilled a well that could be commercially successful.
  Teamsters were needed immediately to transport the oil to markets. In 1862, the Oil Creek & Titusville Railroad was built between Titusville and Corry, where the product was transferred to larger east-west railroad lines. In 1865, pipelines were laid directly to the 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 & Titusville Railroad was built in 1865.  That line became part of the Philadelphia and Erie Railroad in 1871. That fall, President Ulysses S. Grant visited Titusville to view the important region.
  Other oil-related businesses were quickly established. 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. In 1871, the first oil exchange in the United States was established there.  The exchange moved from the city, but returned in 1881 in a new, brick building, before being dissolved in 1897.
  The first oil millionaire was Jonathan Watson, a resident of Titusville.  He owned the land where Drake's well was drilled.  He had been a partner in a lumber business prior to the success of the well.  At one time it was said that Titusville had more millionaires per 1,000 population than anywhere else in the world.
  One resident of note was Franklin S. Tarbell, whose large Italianate home still stands. He first moved a few miles south in Venango County and established a wooden stock tank business. About 10 miles (16 km) south-east of Titusville was another oil boom city, Pithole. Oil was discovered in a rolling meadow there in January 1865 and, by September 1865, the population was 15,000. But the oil soon ran dry and within four years the city was nearly deserted. Tarbell moved to Titusville in 1870. His daughter, Ida Minerva Tarbell, grew up amidst the sounds and smells of the oil industry. She became an accomplished writer and published a series of articles about the business practices of the Standard Oil Company and its president, John D. Rockefeller, which sparked legislative action in Congress concerning monopolies.
  Fire was always a significant concern around oil and one of the worst blazes was on June 11, 1880. It came to be known as "Black Friday", when almost 300,000 barrels (48,000 m³) of oil burned after an oil tank was hit by lightning. The fire raged for three days until it finally was brought under control. The destroyed oil was valued at $2 million, but there was no loss of life. Another fire occurred on June 5, 1892, when Oil Creek flooded and a tank of petroleum ether overturned. The petroleum ether ignited and, in the ensuing explosions, 60 men, women and children died. Another lightning strike in 1894 resulted in 27,000 barrels (4,300,000 liters) of oil being lost in a fire.
  Oil production in Pennsylvania peaked in 1891, after which other industries became established in Titusville. The iron and steel industries dominated the town in the early t
caption: Oil tank struck by lightning, June 11, 1880
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