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Titusville, Pennsylvania: Drake Well Museum

RoadsideAmerica.com Team Field Report

Address:
202 Museum Ln., Titusville, PA
Directions:
Southeast of town. Take Hwy 8 heading south out of town, then turn left (east) just across the bridge onto East Bloss St/Hwy 1011. Stay to the right, cross the one-lane bridge over Oil Creek, then turn right.
Hours:
T-Sa 9-5, Su 12-5. Jan-Feb Sa-Su only. Grounds gated after hours. (Call to verify) Local health policies may affect hours and access.
Phone:
814-827-2797
RA Rates:
Worth a Detour
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Drake Well Museum.

Drake Well Museum

Where Edwin Drake sparked America's first oil boom -- in Pennsylvania. Outdoor derricks and monuments; indoor museum.

Roadsideamerica.com Report... [04/20/2008]

Visitor Tips and News About Drake Well Museum

Reports and tips from RoadsideAmerica.com visitors and Roadside America mobile tipsters. Some tips may not be verified. Submit your own tip.

Drake Well Museum

It is quite nice that Allison wants to give the credit of oil discovery to the first Englishman to sail around the world - but I'm willing to bet that northwestern PA was not one of his stops. Especially since he circimnavigated from 1577 to 1580 and died in 1596. Oil was "discovered" in 1859.

It was first drilled by Col. Edwin L. Drake (portrayed by Vincent Price in the visitor center's film -- which isn't boring if you're a student of history) after he observed the natives in Titusville skimming small amounts of it from Oil Creek. He found that process ineffective and invented the derrick.

Corroborating evidence found at Drake Well's web site -- also a fine place to get info on Pithole visitor's center, which looks like it's only open on June 5th.

[Jen Pye, 11/04/1999]
Drake Well Museum

Titusville has the Drake Well museum, where oil was discovered for the first time in the US by a white man, Francis [correction: Edwin] Drake. The museum's kind of cool, with lots of neat artifacts (including a picture of a wagon used to haul explosives that...well..exploded) but also with an incredibly boring movie about Drake. Close by is Pithole museum, which looks really neat from the outside but it's open only about one day a year and we've never figured out which day that is. Pithole was a boomtown during the oil era, and you can wander around the old house foundations and look through the windows into the museum.

[Allison Sly, 01/24/1999]

Nearby Offbeat Places

Vintage Sun Oil Gas StationVintage Sun Oil Gas Station, Titusville, PA - 1 mi.
Sleep in a CabooseSleep in a Caboose, Titusville, PA - 1 mi.
First Oil PipelineFirst Oil Pipeline, Pleasantville, PA - 5 mi.
In the region:
Victims of Millard Fillmore's Salute, Erie, PA - 41 mi.

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