McKean County PA Genealogy

Marianville Oil Well


Nitroglycerine is carefully poured into one of the twenty explosive cylinders lowered into a Forest County gas well.  The well, just north of Marienville, was "shot" by O.L. (Bill) Hopkins, right, of Torpedo CO., headquartered at Duke Center, Pa. Assisting were Larry Howard and Emerson Campbell, of Otto-Cupler Co., Pleasantville subsidiary of the McKean County firm. The well, shop using 600 quarts of nitro and a dynamite time-bomb, is the second-largest nitro project east of the Mississippi and was drilled by Vanderbilt Resources of Texas.