Fire and Flood of 1892

In the course of a single day in June, 1892, nearly all of Oil City, Pennsylvania had been reduced to ash or carried away by Oil Creek. The flood started after heavy rain broke the Spartansburg dam. Penned between two high hills, the Oil Creek river smashed several oil refineries before flooding Oil CIty up to the second story. While rescue efforts were underway, the oil and naphtha carried on the water from the refineries ignited. According to eyewitness accounts, chemicals from the refineries mixed and a yellow gas formed over the city. Three large explosions ignited the cloud and incinerated Oil City, leaving over 100 dead. With the boomtown literally leveled by the double disaster, architects Joseph Brenot, William Lee, and Charles Bolton rebuilt Oil City. Most of their buildings still used today.

This flood was far from Oil City's first. The nearby Oil Creek runs between two steep hills, and any leveled ground was susceptible to flooding. ^[1] While the dangers of the river were well understood, the unique risks associated with living in an oil boomtown were not. Before pipelines and tanker trucks, oil was collected in wooden barrels and transported via horse and boat. Barrel leakage was common. As a result, everything in Oil City was saturated with Pennsylvania crude – the people, the mud, the river, the wooden buildings, and even the trees couldn’t escape. This meant that any fires were devastating. In the 1800s, methods to extinguish oil fires had not yet been developed: the only option was to wait for the fire to run out of fuel. This was especially true of Oil City, which completely burned and had to be rebuilt multiple times in the 1860s.

The combined fire and flood of 1892 was especially devastating, however, because it truly was the perfect storm of destruction. A day of heavy rainfall swelled Oil Creek, and at midnight on June 4th the Spartansburg Dam (located upstream from Oil City) burst and destroyed much of the nearby town of Titusville. The wreckage from the dam and town were joined by those of refineries along the banks around 2am. The rushing water was now swelled with the contents of 11 oil tanks (each having 300-1,000 barrels of oil within them) and 30,000 barrels of naphtha (a flammable liquid) – leading to a low estimate of 17 million tons of oil and by-products. Around 8 am the flood hit Oil City. The boiler flame of a destroyed refinery lit some of the oil, and small fires broke out across the city. The floodwaters were eight feet high, reaching up to the second story in some places, and frantic rescue efforts were underway. Those who tried to swim away drowned, as did a number of those manning the rescue boats.

Around 10 am, a crowd of around 5,000 people – those rescued, and from the outskirts – watched as rescue efforts persisted and a thick yellow fog blanketed the town. This cloud was made when naphtha combined with other chemicals swept up in the river, creating an extraordinarily flammable gas. The first explosion incinerated half a mile of the downtown instantly, the second explosion reaching as-of-yet untouched refineries, worsening the blaze. The third set everything that wasn’t underwater ablaze, the flames feeding on the gas cloud until they reached 500 feet above the waters, the billowing smoke Blackening the sky and terrifying the onlookers. This started a mad dash for the hills as survivors desperately attempted to outrun the blaze.

When the smoke cleared, the town was essentially leveled. What hadn’t been battered into pieces by the water and debris of Oil Creek’s flood or immolated by the gas explosions was burned, the flames fed by an abundance of oil and timber. The final death toll was 132 persons, some of which were trampled to death by the crowd’s panicked retreat. In all, 75 homes and more than 20 downtown buildings were literally burned to ash, resulting in damages of $1,500,000 – the modern equivalent being over $42 million.

Throughout the next few years, Oil City was rebuilt by three main architects: Joseph Brenot, William Lee, and Charles Bolton. These men built religious, institutional, residential, and commercial buildings that stand to this day. Their signature styles and well-preserved buildings have put Oil City’s downtown commercial district, north side, and south side on the National Register of Historic Places. While some buildings have been demolished or updated, many still retain their historic qualities. A walk through Oil City reveals what it looked like in the 1900s. 

^[1] Since 1866 efforts have been made to shore up the banks as well as the town, and Oil City now sits six feet higher than it was originally.

Glass, B. 1997, National Register of Historic Places Registration Form, OM3 No. 1024-0013, PA Historical and Museum Commission.

Martens, Charles D. “In Harms Way.” The Oil City, edited by Jane Bell, First Seneca Bank and Trust Company, 1971, pp. 87–91.

“Great Flood and Fire of 1892,” NW PA Heritage, accessed July 20, 2020, http://nwpaheritage.org/items/show/43.

team, The NW PA Heritage. “Great Flood and Fire of 1892.” NW PA Heritage, Allegheny College, 2020, www.nwpaheritage.org/items/show/43#&gid=1&pid=1.