Pennsylvania Cabin Trip Three — Pithole and Oil Creek

Replica derrick at Oil Creek. Photo by author.

We actually had two things planned for today. The first was the (in)famous Nebraska Bridge.

Nebraska Bridge. Photo by author.

So, this bridge is infamous for…disappearing. It was built in 1933 to cross the Nebraska Valley. Then four miles downstream, a dam was built to control flooding downstream.

Now the water routinely backs up and floods the bridge. On this particular day there was a mild drought. Typically, the deck is only about 18 inches above water, but as you can see it’s more like 3 to four feet. But during the spring melt, this bridge can disappear altogether.

Pretty cool. There was an old Amish guy fishing. And a buggy. I have no idea where he parked the horse.

Where…is…the horse. Photo by author.

Then our plan was to drive on to Oil Creek State Park, which celebrates Pennsylvania’s oilfield heritage.

Until we found…

Pithole

The sign isn’t very legible, but explains what is going on here. Photo by author.

Pithole wasn’t on Atlas Obscura (bizarrely). It’s not mentioned in any of the literature we saw. Maybe I just didn’t dig deep enough, pun intended.

This open field was, at one point a town of 20,000 people…but not for very long.

The town was laid out in May 1865, incorporated in December 1865, and unincorporated by 1877. Talk about a boom town.

The basic reason Pithole didn’t survive was the same thing that gets most mineral extraction boom towns.

There wasn’t enough oil to sustain it long term. The smart people were the workers who came to Pithole, stayed in one of its 54 (!) hotels, and then moved on when the oil and the money dried up.

The less smart people got got by J. Duncan, possibly a real for true supervillain. He owned the land, and leased plots for 3 to 5 years…and at the end of…