One of the larger streams is Oil Creek, which ows out of Canadohta Lake in northwestern Pennsylvania and eventually into the Allegheny River at Oil City, Pennsylvania. And just outside Titusville is the place where the oil industry began in the United States. The well produced only about 25 barrels of oil per day, but this quantity was considerably more than people were getting before Drake drilled a well for it. Previously, a gallon or two was the most anyone could scoop off the ground as it seeped from springs in and around Oil Creek. Soon, the woods, hills, and creeks around Titusville were full of primitive wooden rigs drilling for rock oil.
Oil Creek flows placidly through the park, now completely free of oil.
They not only erected the wooden derrick and rig housing, but also obtained an old steamboat engine much like the one that powered Drake's outfit. So it is on every morning the park is open, an attendant, following procedures from Drake's time, goes to the rig's woodfired boiler. He opens the re-box door, adds several pieces of split wood, and stokes up a blaze. When the boiler nally builds up enough steam, the attendant starts the engine. The little six-horsepower device hisses, huffs, puffs, and snorts jets of steam from various openings.