page_title: Pithole, Pennsylvania
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Pithole, Pennsylvania / History
caption_attribution_description: English: Activity around the United States Well, Pithole, Pennsylvania in the 1860s. Original caption was "The United States Well at Pithole was struck Jan. 8th, 1865 and flowed 800 bbls per day."
context_page_description: Pithole, or Pithole City, is a ghost town in Cornplanter Township, Venango County in Pennsylvania, about 6 miles from Oil Creek State Park and the Drake Well Museum, the site of the first commercial oil well in the United States. Pithole's sudden growth and equally rapid decline, as well as its status as a "proving ground" of sorts for the burgeoning petroleum industry, made it one of the most famous of oil boomtowns.
  Oil strikes at nearby wells in January 1865 prompted a large influx of people to the area that would become Pithole, most of whom were land speculators. The town was laid out in May 1865, and by December was incorporated with an approximate population of 20,000. At its peak, Pithole had at least 54 hotels, 3 churches, the third largest post office in Pennsylvania, a newspaper, a theater, a railroad, the world's first pipeline and a red-light district "the likes of Dodge City's." By 1866, economic growth and oil production in Pithole had slowed. Oil strikes around other nearby communities and numerous fires drove residents away from Pithole and, by 1877, the borough was unincorporated.
context_section_description: The area around Pithole, and modern-day Venango County, was formerly inhabited by Eries, who were eventually wiped out by the Iroquois in 1653. On October 23, 1784, the Iroquois, which included the Seneca, ceded the land to Pennsylvania in the Treaty of Fort Stanwix. Venango County was formed from portions of Allegheny and Lycoming counties on March 12, 1800. Cornplanter Township was settled in 1795 and was incorporated on November 28, 1833.
  In 1859, Edwin Drake successfully drilled the first oil well along the banks of Oil Creek, outside of Titusville in Crawford County. Within a half year, over 500 wells were built along Oil Creek, in the 16-mile (26 km) corridor from Titusville to the creek's mouth at the Allegheny River in Oil City. Other wells were drilled down the Allegheny towards Franklin and upriver to Tionesta in Forest County. Pithole Creek did not attract the same attention from speculators and investors, who preferred to risk their money on the tried-and-true method of drilling on flatter terrain near large rivers like the Allegheny and Oil Creek, rather than gamble on rougher terrain. In January 1864, Isaiah Frazier leased two tracts of land, totaling 35 acres (14 ha), from Thomas Holmden, a farmer along Pithole Creek. Frazier, James Faulkner Jr., Frederick W. Jones and J. Nelson Tappan formed the United States Petroleum Company in April 1864 and started drilling what was dubbed the United States Well, or Frazier Well, in June. On January 7, 1865, the Frazier Well struck oil.
caption: Stereo card depicting the United States, or Frazier, Well
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