Drake Well Museum & Oil Creek State Park - Pennsylvania

 With age, comes wisdom. With travel, comes understanding.

– Sandra Lake

During the summer of 2025, we spent 16 days camping and exploring some state parks in western New York and northwestern Pennsylvania. On July 22, 2025, we spent the day exploring the Drake Well Museum grounds and neighboring Oil Creek State Park north of Pittsburgh. 

Drake Well Museum

The Drake Well Museum tells the story of the birth and development of the oil industry in Pennsylvania and how it grew into a global enterprise. Unfortunately, the Museum building was closed during our visit, so we weren’t able to see the displays inside of it, view the orientation film, or visit the gift shop. However, the grounds and several historic buildings were open, so we were able to explore them.

One of the features of the 240-acre site is a full-scale replica of the original engine house and derrick. The structure encloses the famous well where Edwin L. Drake struck oil in 1859. It's a National Historic Landmark. The replica also features working reproductions of the wood-fired boiler and steam engine that was used to pump oil from the well.

Drake Wellhouse Replica

Reproduction of 1850 equipment

The outdoor exhibits tell the story of the area's oil producing history through period photographs, machinery, historic buildings and vintage vehicles.

Oil Transportation Building	Oil Drilling Rigs & Central Power Building
Grant Well Office

The grounds also include a large collection of historic drilling rigs.

Spring Pole Drilling Rig

Oil Drilling Rig Standard Steel Drilling Rig

Across the street from the park entrance is a station for the Oil Creek & Titusville Railroad, which takes passengers on a 3-hour ride from Titusville to Rynd Farm Station at the southernmost point in Oil Creek State Park. The journey gives riders the opportunity to learn the history of the area while enjoying the scenery along the way.

Drake Well Train Station

The park also has 2 satellite locations at the Historic Pithole City and McClintock Well #1. But we had other things on our itinerary that day and didn’t have time to visit them. But that just gave us a reason to return to the area another time.

Oil Creek State Park

Located just south of Titusville, Pennsylvania, the 9,000-acre Oil Creek State Park is famous for being the location for the first commercial oil well in the world. Displays and structures in the park tell the story of the oil wells and towns that developed in the Oil Creek valley. Thousands of people moved to the area and boomtowns and derricks quickly replaced the valley’s forest. By 1871, oil production dwindled and the people moved on. However, a few wells are still active in the park.

Amazingly, the valley recovered and looks almost as it did before the boom. Today, ruins of the oil industry can still be found scattered among the valley’s deep hollows and steep hillsides.

Although the Oil Creek Valley played an important role in the development of the world’s oil industry, the park is mostly used as a place for outdoor recreation. The park doesn’t have camping other than for backpackers and organized groups. However its remote and scenic location is a great place for those wishing to picnic, hunt, fish, kayak or canoe, and hike on the park’s more than 52 miles of trails. 

Also in the park is the Oil Creek Bike Trail, a 10-mile paved rail-trail running along Oil Creek from the Drake Well Museum just outside of the park’s northern end to the Park Office at Petroleum Center. The trail passes through several historic sites and is near some of the park’s waterfalls.

Another interesting area in the park is the Blood Farm Day Use Area, where a half-mile-long trail takes you past old buildings and pieces of equipment once used to produce oil. The trail is mostly level and easy to follow. Blood Farm produced more oil than all the other farms in the region in 1861 and 1862. Interpretive signs along the loop trail tell stories about frantic drilling, gushing oil and devastating fires. Along the way we passed by oil industry related artifacts that were left behind.

For more information about things to see and do in the park, click here.

Oil Creek State Park Trail

The paved 9.7-mile Oil Creek State Park Trail and the 1.5-mile Queen City Trail which connects it to the town of Titusville are popular among cyclists, hikers and fishermen. The trail runs on the bed of the former Oil Creek Rail Road, which later merged into the Oil Creek and Allegheny River Railway, and later still became part of the Pennsylvania Railroad. The trail is part of the planned 270-mile Pittsburgh-to-Erie Trail, which will connect to the Great Allegheny Passage, a trail we hope to conquer in the not-so-distant future! The trail is also part of the Industrial Heartland Trails Coalition’s planned 1,500-mile network of trails through Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Ohio, and New York. We had heard a lot of good things about the Oil Creek State Park Trail, and we were happy to check it off our bucket list.

There is a lot of history surrounding this trail. Remnants of the boomtowns that resulted from the world’s first oil well and the railroad that once traversed it can be found along its length.

We started our ride on the trail across the creek from the Drake Well Museum at the main trailhead in the Jersey Bridge Parking Area in the state park. The trailhead is also the southern endpoint for the Queen City Trail.

We headed south along the west shore of Oil Creek on the path. The trail twists and turns along the creek through mostly forest, providing plenty of shade. There were a lot of signs along the trail marking historical sites and some still-working oil and gas wells. We passed by the locations of some former boomtowns including Millers Farm and Shaffer Farm that were mostly overtaken by the forest with little to explore, so we kept riding. 

Just a little less than 2 miles before the trail’s end we crossed over to the east side of the creek on a bridge, and passed the rails of the Oil Creek & Titusville Railroad. From there we followed a park road for a half mile until we arrived at Petroleum Centre, which was once the site of one of the area’s most notorious boomtowns. Today the area has shelters, restrooms, a boat launch and a ranger station where you can rent bicycles. A depot for the Oil Creek & Titusville Railroad is also located there.

We enjoyed our ride on the Oil Creek State Park Trail. We didn't take a lot of photos on our bike ride, but we do have a short video of some highlights you can view by clicking here.

We also have a longer video with highlights from the entire day on our YouTube channel. You can view that by clicking here.

* All photos and videos are the property of the blog owners unless otherwise noted. *