The Tarbell House

Ida Minerva Tarbell, best known for her History of Standard Oil, moved to Titusville in 1870 and later recalled arriving there at age thirteen to live in a new house her father had built during the unstable oil-town years. Franklin Sumner Tarbell, who had been a teacher before coming to the oil region to manufacture wooden storage tanks for crude oil, prospered during the Pithole boom and then suffered when it collapsed. Afterward he bought Pithole's Bonta House for $600, tore it down, hauled its parts to Titusville, and reused its long French windows, iron brackets, verandah elements, handsome woodwork, doors, windows, mouldings, and much of its timber to build the family home, where they lived for many years. In 1865 steel storage tanks replaced wooden ones, but Franklin Tarbell and his son William remained in the oil business throughout his life. Ida graduated from Titusville High School, entered Allegheny College as the only female in her class, and later earned recognition for investigative journalism with induction into the Women's Hall of Fame at Seneca Falls, NY in 2000 and a postage stamp in her likeness in 2002.

Titusville, Pennsylvania · United States