State park · Cornplanter Township, Venango County
Oil Creek State Park
The valley where the oil industry was born, with a paved bike trail past the sites of vanished boomtowns, a heritage railroad, a 36-mile hiking loop and hollows full of small waterfalls.
What you will find
- Hiking trails
- Biking
- Cross-country skiing
- Camping
- Boat launch
- Canoe and kayak launch
- Fishing
- Picnic areas
- Wildlife and bird watching
- Scenic views
- Historic features
Hunting is permitted here in season. Check the state hunting calendar and wear blaze orange in fall and winter.
Make a day of it
Nearby
-
Pithole City
Mown paths on a quiet hillside trace the streets of an 1865 oil boomtown that swelled to thousands of people and emptied within a few years.
-
Drake Well Museum and Park
The spot where Edwin Drake struck oil in 1859 and launched the modern petroleum industry, with a replica engine house and derrick, an oil-history museum and trails along Oil Creek.
-
Oil Creek & Titusville Railroad
Excursion trains roll down the valley where the oil business began, through Oil Creek State Park between Titusville and Rynd Farm.
-
Titusville
Where the oil industry began in 1859, with the Drake Well Museum on the site of the first commercial well, Victorian houses built on oil money and a bike trail through Oil Creek's valley.
-
Cornplanter State Forest
A compact forest of scattered tracts named for the Seneca leader Cornplanter, with old-growth pines and hemlocks along Anders Run and short, easy trails for hiking and cross-country skiing.
-
Franklin
Where French Creek meets the Allegheny River, a Victorian county seat with oil-boom mansions, a downtown laid out around two parks, and paved river trails leading out of town.
