George Bissell

Although we didn't ride the K&K railway excursion (a timing issue, mostly), a few days later we boarded a train in Titusville and rode along the Oil Creek valley (PDF). This is a truly historic area--the petroleum industry was born here--and the tour did a decent job of introducing that history. It's rather like a mining area's saga, with boom towns and speculators and colorful characters. Now mostly wilderness, and ruins.

George Bissell, after whom the car is named, was an oil industry pioneer. The photo was taken, I believe, at the tour's Petroleum Centre stop.