Crawford County, Pennsylvania

1869-70 DIRECTORY OF THE OIL REGIONS

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TITUSVILLE.

THIS city is very properly recognized as the Metropolis of the oil region, and from its location and advantages as a Commercial Centre has been the leading business point of the Petroleum Producing Districts as well as of Western Pennsylvania, for the trade and commerce of the entire oil country has centered here since the first developments were made ten years ago. From a simple country hamlet containing less than one hundred inhabitants, it has expanded into a bustling, thriving town, and, in 1866, with a population of 7,000 or 8,000 it was incorporated as a city.
Titusville proper is located upon the northern bank of Oil Creek, which at this point hugs the southern bluff, leaving a valley of nearly one mile in width which is unsurpassed in beauty. The valley extends for nearly a mile in it westerly direction before the view is terminated by a high range of hills which in the summer season afford a picturesque and beautiful setting to so fair a picture below.&*nbsp; To the eastward the eye ranges for nearly three miles, when another series of elevated table-lands seem to made the terminus of the valley, which, in reality, extends for miles further, though narrowed, and ill-fitted for agriculture or grazing purposes, by reason of rocky soil, precipitous bluffs, &c. As seen from the southern bluff the city extends quite to the western side of the valley, and several very pretty residences have been erected on the hill-side, though the declivity is such that building is attended with difficulty. Nearly all of that part of Titusville lying west of Franklin street, is built upon what was at one time the bed of a swamp, a part of which, still undrained, marks the Western boundary of the town itself. At present it shows a vast flat surface, covered with a dense undergrowth, diversified here and there by groups of pines. next page