Although many of its wells have dried up, Oil Creek Valley has not stopped paying homage to the slick stuff that gave the region a jolt of life and wealth beginning in the mid 1800s.
To be specific, the industry's precise place of origin is at the present day Drake Well Museum, Titusville, Pa. On the museum's 219-acre grounds is "the site of Edwin Drake's well, which was the first well drilled specifically for petroleum, which resulted in commercial success in 1859," museum director Barbara Zolli explains. "There are other wells in the country that are older, but many of them were salt wells where oil or petroleum was a byproduct."