Photo by Jerry Sowden - Richard Dunlap, a local podiatrist, is exhibiting some of his Venango County oil industry related photographs at the Venango Museum of Art, Science and Industry.

What many perceive to be junk stuck out in the woods should actually be seen as treasure, believes an Oil City man who is intent on preserving that part of the region's oil heritage.

"All these things are rusting and my worry is that part of our history is slowly but surely disappearing," said Richard J. Dunlap, a local podiatrist and history buff who has taken camera in hand to record the history. "These are valuable treasures of our past and they need preserved."

Those "treasures' are the tools of the oil and gas trade, an industry born nearly 150 years ago in the Oil Valley, and they range in size from a full-fledged oil derrick in the midst of a field to a series of rod lines strung out every which way on a forest floor.

Dunlap has photographed a wide variety of those artifacts scattered throughout the oil field landscape in Venango County.

Several of the pictures are featured in a new Oil 150 exhibit in the Venango Museum of Science, Industry and Technology in Oil City. The public unveiling is set during an open house from 7 to 8:30 p.m. Wednesday at the museum.

"We're inviting the public to stop in and see the photographs and talk with Dr. Dunlap," said Betsy Kellner, museum director. "I'm sure the pictures will be of interest to everyone.

Dunlap's hobby comes quite naturally from a long association with the oil and gas industry. His father, John Dunlap, worked for 41 years at Pennzoil as an auditor and payroll supervisor and his father-in-law, Edward Simpson, worked for many years as a gauger for National Transit.

"My wife was hired right out of high school by Quaker State to be secretary to the advertising manager, Art Blank," Dunlap said. "...I worked in the yard gang during my summer vacations at both plant one and two at Pennzoil in Rouseville. Those close associations had a great deal to do with my interest in oil field photography."

The Dunlap collection includes pictures of a wide array of machinery, tools and structures that were manufactured in this region. Their origins include Cooper-Bessemer in Grove City, Oil City Boiler Works, Wolfe Drilling Machine in Sugarcreek, Oil Well Supply, Reid Gas Engine and others.

Oil field artifacts can be found on hills and in hollows, said Dunlap, and most sites are easily accessible.

"They are in Oil Creek State Park, along Halyday Run Road, in Plumer - anyone who is interested can easily visit the actual sites by putting on a pair of hiking boots and enjoying the beautiful woodlands here," Dunlap said.

One of his personal favorites in the photo gallery is one showing an old Dodge power-wagon, a vehicle that was converted to a well-pulling machine to pull out well rods, in Oil Creek State Park. The industry's tendency to invent as it went is enviable, Dunlap said.

"These fellows who worked the wells were mechanical geniuses and they jury-rigged everything," Dunlap said. "...Every pulling machine was an original model - no two looked alike or came from the same chassis, yet they all did the same job."

Dunlap, a self-described collector of "anything oil, from signs to cans and more," said he hopes his photographs stir up a bit of indignation.

"It won't be long until these oil field relics are gone forever," Dunlap said. "It's a shame that the area that calls itself the Hub of Oildom is so neglectful of its heritage. There should be an effort to save and preserve a portion of these valuable treasures of our past (because)...if we don't act soon, it will be too late."