Indoor Exhibits

There’s a Drop of Oil and Gas in Your Life Every Day!

Visitor Center and Museum

Nearly every aspect of our lives is saturated with petroleum. It’s used to power vehicles, to heat homes, to create medicines that keep us healthy, and to make the plastics, cosmetics, and other personal products that enhance our daily lives. Discover how the 1859 Drake Well oil strike launched the global industry that has forever shaped our modern world!

Chronicling over 165 years of petroleum industry development, Drake Well Museum’s 10,000 square-foot exhibit space features educational displays highlighting over 530 unique artifacts and original photographs. Learn how petroleum was procured both before and after Drake's Well; the development of how petroleum was used, stored, and transported; the science and history of the refining process; the different businesses connected to the petroleum industry; and the future of the industry. Visitors begin their experience in the Charles Suhr Orientation Theater with a multi-sensory orientation film before moving into the gallery where eye-catching displays and engaging interactives immerse them in petroleum from its discovery to the present day and beyond.

Moving Oil!

Oil Transportation Building

Explore the petroleum industry’s evolution from horses to horsepower. This 1,800 square-foot exhibit features 6 historic vehicles once used in drilling, well maintenance, and oil transportation operations, including an 1880 tank wagon and a 1927 GMC Big Brute Truck.

Moving Oil! employs captivating oral histories, photography, documents, and interactive displays to engage visitors in the story of how people, animals, and machinery worked together in Pennsylvania’s oil fields.