Most recent U.S. Census Bureau statistics indicate that 657 people live in Tidioute.

The town once had a population of 5,000.

For a few years in the 19th century, Tidioute was one of the crown jewels of Oildom.

The face of Triumph Hill, across the river and a mile from the town, turned from a forest of trees into a forest of oil derricks.

The boom didn’t last.

In 10 years it was all gone.

But those ten years drastically shaped the landscape around Tidioute, just 15 miles from Titusville where Edwin Drake initially struck oil in 1859.

It didn’t take long – interrupted by four years of civil war – for the industry to spread.

The boom hit Triumph Hill with an October 4, 1966 discovery, according to the American Oil & Gas Historical Society.

“(The) Triumph Hill discovery sparked a rush of uncontrolled development,” according to a Society article. “Although they would not last, notorious boom towns sprang up at Gordon Run and Daniels Run west of Tidioute on Pennsylvania’s Allegheny River. Like the earlier discoveries at Titusville, Rouseville and Pithole Creek, wooden derricks replaced hillside trees.”

Nothing so clearly details that transformation than the above photo – a Library of Congress image of Triumph Hill. The image is taken in stereo, meaning that if you have a stereo viewer (or cross your eyes real hard while staring at the middle), the photo will appear in 3D.

The image was taken by Frank Robbins. The Society noted that Robbins, from Oil City, took Oildom photos for roughly 20 years.

A 1953 test, A Traveler’s Guide to Historic Western Pennsylvania, noted that Triumph Hill “was the bonanza field of the Tidioute region. Wells were driven 900 feet deep to reach 60 feet oil-bearing sands. In 1874 the east and west sides of the hill formed a forest of derricks ‘crowded like trees in a grove.’ Triumph Hill wells flowed full for five years. During this time, Tidioute’s population grew to 5,000.”

The Guide described Tidioute as “the focal point of the richest Warren County oil pool and ‘played second fiddle to no town in Oildom for intelligence, enterprise, and all-around attractiveness.’ Five churches, good hotels and schools, blocks of brick houses, three banks, three planing mills, two foundries, a dozen refineries, a waterworks and an iron bridge spanning the river were proof of Tidioute’s wealth. The Economite lands, across the river in Limestone Township, and the Triumph Hill section in Triumph Township were the chief sources of Tidioute’s oil riches. Wells were drilled on the islands in the Allegheny, but most of these were destroyed by the flood of 1865.”

The 1879 History of Venango County noted that Triumph Hill sat 392 feet above the river “and was the center of the most successful operations in 1869 and 1870.”

The Society described the Triumph Hill boom town a “rough-neck filled” town with “sports, strumpets, and plug-uglies, who stole, gambled, caroused and did their best to break all the commandments at once.

“Fresh from the oilfield at boom town Pithole 25 miles southwest, Ben Hogan, the self-proclaimed ‘Wickedest Man in the World,’ operated a bawdy house on the Triumph hillside.”

We’ll leave the definition of a “bawdy house” up to the reader to investigate on their own.

“Despite growing recognition that crowded drilling reduced reservoir pressures and production, the bonanza prompted a frenzy of drilling as investors tried to cash in on the discovery before the oil ran out,” according to the Society. “By the summer of 1867, Triumph Hill was producing 2,000 barrels of oil a day. The flood of oil brought lower prices…. (Robbins) published stereograph images of Triumph Hill, declaring it to be ‘the most magnificent oil belt ever yet discovered. On this belt which is but two miles long and less than one mile wide – were over 180 producing wells, nearly every one of which was in operation.’

The Society cited the 1896 book Sketches in Crude-Oil which stated that “Triumph Hill turned out as much money to the acre as any spot in Oildom,” noting that many of the wells averaged 25 barrels a day.

“Eventually the tempo of oil exploration around Tidioute and boom town debauchery slowed as the region’s daily production fell,” the Society stated. “Although drilling discipline and well spacing, reservoir engineering and other oilfield management stills would evolve, Triumph Hill’s glory dissipated within five years as overproduction drained the field.

“Today, Triumph Hill remains one of the many quietly beautiful and forest-covered sites along the Allegheny River Valley that has earned a special place in America’s petroleum history.”