Books and Manuscripts

Philad'a & Elmira Rail Road Line! "Catawissa Route." To All Points West Direct Route to the Oil Regions! Of Pennsylvania...
Philadelphia, no date (ca. 1860s). Printed broadside. 19 x 8 in. (483 x 203 mm). With a printed table of fares on verso. Creasing from old folds; chipping and wear along edges. In mat, 25 3/4 x 14 3/4 in. (654 x 375 mm). 

A rare broadside relating to America's first oil rush, published by the Philadelphia & Elmira Rail Road Line, and advertising their routes to the booming oil regions of Western Pennsylvania. 

E.L. Drake (1819-80) drilled the first oil well in the United States in 1859, near Titusville, in Crawford County, Pennsylvania. When he struck oil in August of that year, he set off the first oil rush in the country, bringing hordes of people as well as drilling companies looking to strike black gold. New towns around the oil fields, such as Oil City, Pithole, and Titusville, among others, sprung up practically overnight to house workers and their families. To meet increasing demand and ease the means of transporting oil, railroad lines like the above quickly laid tracks to the oil fields, bringing in thousands of people and shipping out thousands of gallons of petroleum and crude oil. At its peak, Pennsylvania's wells produced one third of all the world's oil.