[Brochure] Diamond Jubilee of Oil, Titusville, Pa., 1934-08-24 - 1934-08-27

Titusville, Pennsylvania celebrated in 1934 the 75th anniversary of the first successful oil well drilled in the United States. The Drake Well produced the first commercial petroleum in the United States by drilling in oil seeps in the manner of salt well drillers. Edwin Laurentine Drake (1819-1880) was hired by the Seneca Oil Company to investigate for a suitable oil site in the oil seeps along the bank of Oil Creek in Venango County, Pennsylvania. In 1859 Drake became the first American to successfully drill for oil using the salt well drilling methods. His well was 69.5 feet deep and sparked the first oil boom in the United States. He never capitalized on the method and died in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania a poor old man. Eventually the Standard Oil Company paid to erect a memorial tomb in Titusville for Drake and his second wife. The Diamond Jubilee of Oil celebration was the occasion when the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania took ownership of the site to be made into a state park. This little flyer was a generally distributed program for the four days of events noting the celebration: August 24 was Oil Region Day with sightseeing tour of the Drake Well Memorial Park and registration for the events; August 25 was Jubilee Day with a Parade, Historical Pageant and Ball with Band concerts; August 25 was Old Home Day with special church services, Concert at the Park and sightseeing tours; August 27 was Drake Day with the dedicatory exercises for the Drake Well Memorial Park and address by the Governor of Pennsylvania Gifford Pinchot and Harold L. Ickes, Secretary of the Interior and Oil Administrator in the Roosevelt Administration, fireworks and band concerts. A formal program of multiple pages was available for dignitaries. The celebration's general chairman was C. L. von Tacky, secretary of the Titusville Oil Works, a local refinery producing a 1000 bbls daily in 1934.

By Eleanor Nothelfer, May 2019