Cheese Plates and Room Service: How a PA Boom Town with an Unlikely Name Gave Rise to the Petroleum Industry

This blog entry has nothing whatsoever to do with cheese plates, nor room service--quite the opposite. Yet it's a story I felt like sharing due to its interesting backstory and it seemed easiest this way. So here it is, shoehorned in. I hope you find it as interesting as I did.

When my husband and I first learned of Pithole, we got quite the laugh and contemplated why a town would have such a name. Might it be Spanish? Pronounced Pit-hole-aay? No, we were told, there was no putting lipstick on that moniker, but we can't say we didn't try to fancy it up. And yes, it does indeed rhyme with another word that about sums it up.

Deeper research revealed that the origin of the name is a bit murky, not unlike the streets of that place located in between Pleasantville (once you emerge from Pithole I suppose) and Plumer in Venango County, Pennsylvania. There are two schools of thought here: it was named thusly due to the sulfur gases that wafted up through the holes between the rocks near a local creek. This led some to speculate that it was a portal to hell. Another hypothesis is that the name was derived from the excavations that took place when drilling for oil.

One thing’s for sure, the town lived up to its name, or down rather. You could say that the area attracted some of society's worst and became a haven for those with only the strongest stomachs and the most rugged constitutions.

How It Began

The City of Pithole, courtesy of the Drake Museum and Parks Collection

Pithole City began on the Thomas Holmden farm in Venango County in 1865 when two speculators, named Frazier and Faulkner, leased 65 acres of farmland hoping that there’d be gold in them thar hills, liquid gold, so to speak. It stood to reason, they figured, since nearby Oil Creek Valley was revealed to be rich with it. So, using a divining tool with a witch hazel twig, (it’s a Pennsylvania thing), they set off to drill. Well, their efforts paid off handsomely and pretty soon people from all parts of the country we’re flocking to the area to get rich quick. It seemed everyone and his brother wanted a piece of the action.

The City of Pithole photographed from the flats by Pithole Creek looking up towards the city (photo courtesy of the Drake Museum and Parks Collection)

The land was leased to speculators at $3K per half acre, a whopping sum in 1865. Because these speculators didn’t own the land, they’d erect makeshift wooden structures for living and drilling there. One two-story hotel built with astonishing rapidity was the Astor Hotel, which went up in one day.

Soon the city was home to 15,000 residents, 57 hotels and numerous brothels and bars. It seems as if those who had taken up residence there were also patrons of the arts. Never let it be said that those residents lacked class! In no time they had constructed theaters and hired actors. The city also established a hometown newspaper and a post office which was said to be the third-busiest in Pennsylvania.

People congratulated each other on the swiftness with which they acted to erect structures to accommodate their needs, but it turned out that the builders were short-sighted. Pennsylvania winters in the buildings were brutal, with gusts of air blowing through the hastily made log cabin structures.

Forget the Tussie-Mussies—Send Some Smelling Salts Over Here

According to Susan Hutchison Tassin in her book titled “Pennsylvania Ghost Towns,” the place literally reeked—reeked plus ultra, stunk to the high heavens—you get the idea. And water was hard to come by. Those who did manage to procure some were charged 10 cents a cup and then one couldn't guarantee it wouldn't be oily.

Shopkeepers, hoteliers, residents all pitched their garbage and chamber pots right into the streets. Those who had to cross said streets would remove their shoes and socks and then dunk them into a large vat of water provided by the business people around the city. The poor Pithole mules were flogged when they couldn’t keep up dragging barrels of heavy oil around and most were bald from the neck down due to the sludge that damaged the capillaries to the skin. When they finally chose death over pain, they were dragged to the edge of town and unceremoniously dumped. According to Tassin, the life expectancy of the poor creatures was but a few months. Because of the maltreatment, they ran out of beasts of burden, but the enablers just shipped them more, bringing mules in from Ohio and New York.

The Wild, Wild West

As time went on, the city became like the Wild West. According to reports, there were shootouts, murders and riots. One brothel felt the need to “advertise” and the girls would ride naked down the streets at night in a unique marketing campaign.

By 1866, Pithole City denizens had realized it was time to move on after wells dried up and a series of fires took on a life of their own with so much kindling in the form of shacks around. That was the death knell for the area and the end of the liquid gold rush that gave birth to a town which lasted a mere 500 days.

Today’s Pithole

When my husband and I visited a few years’ ago, there really wasn’t much to see. There was a small visitor’s center that displays photos of Pithole City, but it was closed when we visited. I later learned that the Visitor Center is open to the public from May 31 through August 31 on weekends from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.

For those who are interested in seeing old pictures of Pithole City during its heyday, there’s also the Drake Well Museum and Park located in nearby Titusville Pa. The museum opened in 1934 and pays tribute to the area’s petroleum industry, so visitors will be able to see even more photos of Pithole during its rough-and-tumble, short-lived heyday. The museum's 240-acre site features a replica of Edwin L. Drake’s engine house built around the National Historic Landmark well, along with operating oil field machinery. Guest will also be able to browse among 12,000 square foot of interior exhibits and view the largest artifact and archival collection focused on the birth of the modern petroleum industry.