Following the drilling of the world's first oil well in 1859 just south of town, the small village of Titusville exploded into a bustling city. Through the early 1870s, newly prosperous citizens built stores, banks, hotels, and churches, as well as hundreds of residences. Into the 20th century, residents remodeled or built anew, leaving Titusville with a crop of Victorian buildings, many of which still stand today. The nearby cities of Petroleum Center and Pithole developed at significant oil production sites. As production moved elsewhere in the 1870s, both cities were abandoned and soon vanished completely. Using vintage images from the unmatched collection of the Drake Well Museum, Oil Boom Architecture: Titusville, Pithole, and Petroleum Center documents the rich architectural history of these three boomtowns.
William B. Moore, a graduate of Dickinson College and Harvard Law School, practices law and writes local, architectural, and family history. Joshua F. Sherretts is a junior at Edinboro University and the museum assistant at the Baldwin-Reynolds House Museum. An avid local and rural historian, he is also the author of Around Saegertown.