It all started here in Venango County with Pennsylvania rock oil, the lifeblood of the infant oil industry. Known as black gold, this magical fluid made fortunes and transformed forever our everyday lives, global economics, politics, and the environment itself. Through ten thematic display areas, discover the impact oil has on your everyday life in our exhibit OIL: BLACK GOLD OR BLACK MAGIC?

Discover how Venango County’s influx of wealth and population due to the area’s oil boom built towns with theaters lining their streets, attracted the big-name entertainers of the time, and more in the new and limited-time exhibit OIL BOOM SPECTACULAR! ENTERTAINMENT IN THE OIL REGION.

The Venango Museum is home to Oil City’s official visitor center. Admission to the visitor center is always free. The visitor center features a brochure rack containing information on all local attractions in the Oil Region. The visitor center also contains an exhibit detailing Oil City’s past as the transportation and financial trading center of the early modern oil industry.

OUR PENNZOIL STORY tells the story of the Pennzoil Company here in Venango County. Discover how three men forever altered the history of Venango County when they purchased ten acres of the old Clapp Farm on Oil Creek, between Titusville and Oil City.