[PRCo] Re: PRCo Oil City

[Fred Schneider]

In my albums, Ed....


On Feb 17, 2012, at 8:35 AM, Edward H. Lybarger wrote:

> Donald Slick's photos are not housed at PTM.  I believe they are at the
> local historical society in Oil City.  We have a relatively small number of
> prints from his collection.
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: pittsburgh-railways-bounce at lists.dementix.org
> [mailto:pittsburgh-railways-bounce at lists.dementix.org] On Behalf Of Fred
> Schneider
> Sent: Thursday, February 16, 2012 8:50 PM
> To: pittsburgh-railways at dementix.org
> Subject: [PRCo] Re: PRCo Oil City
> 
> 
> Not hard to see why the line went out of business is it?  I counted 33
> houses within walking distance of the southern line between Oil City and
> Franklin.   The only thing on it to draw traffic was the park for three
> months out of the year.   And when the ice jam took out the Big Rock Bridge,
> there no reason to run the car line at all except for the park so the park
> was closed too.   
> 
> Another one of those great examples of trolley lines that should never have
> built like the few I put on line the other day.    
> 
> In 1900 Franklin had a population of about 7,000 people and Oil City was
> home to 13,000 and only 50,000 lived in all of Venango County.   By the time
> the line quit in 1928 ... well, let's use the 1930 census ... about 11,000
> in Franklin and 22,000 in Oil City and 63,000 in the county.   The area
> peaked between the 1950s and 60s.   The county got up to 65,000.   Today
> Venango county is down to 55,000 just 10% more than it had in 1900.   The
> fortunes of the area were very much linked to the production of oil.   When
> it ran out, the economy went south.  In the 1950s Pennzoil was headquartered
> there; today it is a subsidiary of Royal Dutch Shell (Shell oil) and its
> offices are in Houston.   Pennzoil closed its refinery at Rouseville, just
> north of Oil City, 13 years ago.   Bing Maps shows a huge empty wasteland
> where it used to employ hundreds of people.   I think Atlantic used to have
> a refinery in Reno on the other side of Oil City at one time.   
> 
> And thanks Ray for posting.   I had seen most of the trolley stuff but the
> views at Monarch Park were great finds.   
> 
> Many of the pictures came from Donald Slick.  I got a chance to visit with
> that gentleman at his home in Oil City back in the early 1960s and he nicely
> provided me with a lot of those pictures.   They are now in the PTM archive.
> A very nice man.  I have no idea how old he was then ... I suspect he was in
> his 60s then (and I was in my early 20s).     He remembered and had ridden
> the cars.   
> 
> http://www.cardcow.com/c/65817/pennsylvania-oil-city/
> 
> If any of you saved old Railroad magazines, about 1950 or 1951, Slick wrote
> a piece on Cititzens Traction which Steve Maguire sent in to Freeman Hubbard
> for publication.   
> 
> On Feb 16, 2012, at 2:22 PM, Derrick Brashear wrote:
> 
>> USGS has them scanned as whole maps now.
>> 
>> On Thu, Feb 16, 2012 at 2:16 PM, robert netzlof <wb3iqe at rocketmail.com>
> wrote:
>>>> -----Original Message-----
>>>> From: pittsburgh-railways-bounce at lists.dementix.org
>>>> 
>>>> Just a cool website. Also check out Monarch Park.
>>>> http://www.oilcitypa.net/Oil%20City/trolley_images.htm
>>>> 
>>>> http://www.oilcitypa.net/Monarch%20Park/monarch_park.htm
>>> 
>>> Interested readers may also like to see:
>>> 
>>> http://historical.mytopo.com/getImage.asp?fname=oilc24nw.jpg&state=PA
>>> 
>>> and:
>>> 
>>> http://historical.mytopo.com/getImage.asp?fname=fran11ne.jpg&state=PA
>>> 
>>> Bob Netzlof a/k/a Sweet Old Bob
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> -- 
>> Derrick
>> 
> 
> 
> 
>