Oil City boasted many social clubs for women as 1900 dawned. However, there were few opportunities for younger women and girls to gather and enjoy conversation, put on a program, plan a service project and more. The Federation of Women’s Clubs in Oil City believed that ought to change and in 1923 Mrs. E.C. Beatty, federation president, asked Miss Myra Chickering of Oil City to travel to New York City. Her mission was to visit the national Young Women’s Christian Association (YWCA) national headquarters to inquire about establishing a YWCA in Oil City. Myra met with Mabel Krall of the nation ..read more

The sizzling oil patch was home to scores of notable men and women in the early history of the region. Two of those area residents claimed unusual fame as a result of their notoriety. And they were women. Anna Martha Bender, daughter of German immigrants, was a recluse known for her unconventional way of life and possible association with a famous Colorado gang of outlaws. She lived in a shack in Cornplanter Township. Kate LaCount, known as French Kate, was an entertainer, saloon hostess and prostitute in Pithole and Tidioute. Described by writers as a “voluptuous redhead of slight morals ..read more

While many Oil City residents have achieved high recognition as well as earned enormous wealth, others have shared ties with those individuals who had both fame and money. Henry H. Rogers Born in 1840 in Massachusetts, Henry Huttleson Rogers worked a series of odd jobs as a young man but was soon intrigued by the excitement in the new oil fields of western Pennsylvania. In 1861 Rogers, 21, met up with a partner in Pennsylvania. The two pooled their money and began buying crude oil from independent producers. They also set up a small refinery at McClintockville near Rouseville. They prospere ..read more

Grove Hill Cemetery, a sprawling graveyard on Oil City’s North Side, was dedicated in June 1871. Stories relating to the people buried there offer a keen glimpse into the city’s early and illustrious history. A September 2023 cemetery walk, one of several held over the years by the Oil City Heritage Society, focused on a number of men and women who lived, worked, raised families, offered charitable and civic assistance and more during the city’s birth. The tour included parts of Grove Hill Cemetery and adjacent old St. Joseph Cemetery. Here is a sampling of those individuals who were part o ..read more

An Oil City resident didn’t have to walk far to shop for groceries in the mid-1950s as dozens of stores, both large and small, were scattered throughout the community. While there were a few nationally known grocery store chain outlets in town, the majority of the stores were small and family-owned. Most of the smaller stores were known by their proprietors’ names – Venturella, Snyder’s, Bagnato’s, Kellner’s and many more. Some families had connections to more than one grocery store. The Helscel Dairy was located at 500 Colbert Avenue while the Paul Helscel Market was in Rouseville. Collett ..read more

Many Oil City women have left their marks on the nation’s history. Two city women – Lois Brundred and Elizabeth Reid – served the country as health professionals overseas in World War II. A pair of city women – Helen Weaver Oxenham and Ruth Crawford Culver – were honored by a national organization for their bravery in saving a young Oil City boy. Elizabeth Dunbar Reid Elizabeth Reid, daughter of Scottish stonemason David Reid and his wife Isabella McKee Reid, grew up on Washington Avenue in Oil City and graduated in 1905 from the Oil City Hospital School of Nursing. In 1906, she signed up a ..read more

In its bustling beginnings, Oil City offered an enormous array of social, benevolent, recreational and service organizations for its residents. Many of those clubs and groups aligned themselves with specific causes while others existed purely for social purposes. There were labor organizations, professional societies, literary and musical clubs, religious groups and others. The titles chosen by those who came together ranged from the direct – the Winifred Tonkin Branch of the Needlework Guild of America – to the obscure – Rathbone Sisters of the Knights of Pythias. Regardless of their names ..read more

The City of Oil City was booming in the mid-1950s. The population was listed as 18,500-plus residents while the jobs sector ranged from major U.S. companies such as Jones & Laughlin Steel, U.S. Steel, Continental Can, Koppers and Worthington to dozens of small shops and professional offices. The community boasted three hotels, three motion picture theaters, a 175-bed hospital, eight public schools, a busy railroad system and much more. Included in that inventory for 1954 were 40-plus restaurants within the city limits in 1954. The listing also included taverns that offered a limited men ..read more

The Oil City Library, one of 1,412 public libraries built in the United States more than a century ago by Pittsburgh philanthropist Andrew Carnegie, is an imposing and magnificent building on Oil City’s South Side. It opened to the public as the Carnegie Library of Oil City on July 6, 1904, with much hoopla, pride and enthusiasm. One of its most intriguing and elaborate spaces, though, has been empty and rather forlorn since the mid-1950s: Library Hall. A group of Oil City residents organized the Petroleum Institute’s Lyceum in 1864 for the purpose of offering books to the public. It was re ..read more

The Allegheny River was a prime transportation route for all manner of goods for more than 200 years. The original river traffic focused on cut timber that was loaded in communities up and down the river and sent south to the larger cities, especially Pittsburgh, to meet consumers’ needs. Then came the iron ore industry that shuttled iron from the region’s many iron furnaces to smelting operations downriver. Barges laden with those goods were often tied up to large iron rings drilled into large rocks along the river banks. Rafters would tie up at those spots for the night and then resume th ..read more