Oil Creek Railroad

The discovery of oil near Titusville in eighteen fifty-nine set off a boom, but getting crude to market was a chaotic and dangerous problem. Barrels were floated downstream on Oil Creek in wooden flatboats that frequently capsized, and teamsters hauled them overland through axle-deep mud. The Oil Creek Railroad, first reached Titusville in eighteen sixty-two, cut through that chaos.

Its line eventually ran about thirty-seven miles from the oil fields at Petroleum Centre to Corry, connecting to the major rail network. The railroad immediately rendered the old waterway transport and horse-drawn wagons obsolete, carried thousands of fortune seekers into the region, and became one of the most profitable short lines in the country, a crucial artery of America's first petroleum industry.