Living history exhibit demonstrates county’s rich oil history
PROSPECT — Of the 422 oil wells that were plugged to create Moraine State Park, one remains — and this summer visitors can experience it in action at the Marshall-Barr No. 19 oil well.
“It’s really cool, and Butler has a really rich oil history,” volunteer Joy Bray said over the clunk clunk of the well’s massive Bessemer gas engine.
On Saturday, July 8, the Moraine, McConnells Mill, and Jennings Commission (3MJC) held its second Muddy Creek Oil Field Living History Demonstration of the summer at Moraine State Park.
Bray said the site will be in operation from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. every second Saturday through October.
For Saturday’s demonstration, volunteer Dennis Moore — in an engineer’s cap — provided a complimentary tour of the 1904 well engine.
“It’s a two-cycle engine, and it’s a Bessemer engine,” Moore said. “And it was made in Grove City.”
According to Moore, the engine was developed by a county doctor and a local engineer and could fill an average of 10 42-gallon barrels a day. From there, the oil was transferred through a series of pipelines to refineries in East Butler.
“There were 17 wells running off of this engine,” Bray added. “Just one hill over, there was another engine house running a similar number of wells — and there were engine houses scattered all over the countryside.”
Bray reiterated that the living history exhibit also once was the lifeblood of the county.
“Butler was the oil capital of the world from about 1900 to 1920,” she said. “I mean, we had big meetings of bigwigs like Rockefeller and Frick in Butler at that time, it was very grand.”
As the fields were plugged to make way for Moraine State Park, the Marshall-Bar No. 19 oil was preserved as a testament to that history, according to Bray.
“The thought was that this would be a good demonstration project somewhere in the future, so we’re talking 65’, 66’-ish,” Bray said. “In that time frame it just laid here as a derelict site.”
The demonstration project wouldn’t come to fruition until 1995, Bray said, when the park manager assembled a group of volunteers to bring the site back into operation.
“It opened at the Regatta in August of 2000,” she said.
Bray said the site gets an average 35 visitors each Saturday during its summer demonstrations, with some visitors engaging extensively with the volunteer guides and others simply sightseeing.
Just that afternoon, she said a group of five boys and their father hiked onto the site for a lesson on its operation.
“They were a great group of boys, I mean, wow,” Bray said. “They were attentive, they asked pertinent questions. They had some background that a lot of kids, apparently, don’t have.”
Although the engine now simply circulates oil rather than pumping it, Bray said it still was a completely functional restoration.
She added that the group always is looking for more volunteers and hoping to educate the next generation on the engine’s operation.
“What we’re really short on is people who have any engine knowledge,” she said. “It doesn’t have to be that engine in particular — engines in general, that always is a help.”
While the site is always open to the public, Bray urged residents to take advantage of the live demonstrations this summer and experience their own county’s history.
“You can come out here any day of the week and walk around and look around,” Bray said. “It is the most boring place on the planet: it’s rickety, it’s rundown, and you have no idea what’s going on out there.
“But today, didn’t you learn something about oil while it was running, and how this thing operates?”
Want to visit?
The Muddy Creek Oil Field - Living History Demonstration is open every second Saturday of the month through October, 11 a.m. to 4 p.m.
Remaining demonstrations are Aug. 12, Sept. 9 and Oct. 7.
The central powerhouse site is located beyond the State Parks Region 2 office, 195 Park Rd., Prospect. Follow the signs for the “antique oil well.”
Open dates are dependent on volunteer availability and weather conditions, check the Moraine, McConnells Mill, Jennings Commission’s (3MJC) Facebook page or website to confirm.
