Ghost town · Cornplanter Township, Venango County
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.
What you will find
- Historic features
Make a day of it
Nearby
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
