American Oil Depot

Walking past it at the Papscanee Island Nature Preserve I could smell the sweet smell of hydrogen sulfide in the crude oil and the flare was rip roaring away. Based on the bright yellow flare, must have been a pretty rich mixture they were burning producing a lot of carbon monoxide. 

Deep Roots in the Pennsylvania Wilds | Pennsylvania Wilds

Earth Day and The Wilderness Act: Deep Roots in the Pennsylvania Wilds | Pennsylvania Wilds

However, there was another environmental movement underway long before that, beginning right here in the Allegheny National Forest and Surrounds, by Tionesta’s Howard Zahniser. He wrote the 1964 National Wilderness Act that directed Congress to establish and protect wilderness areas on national forest land.

Today, Zahniser is regarded as “The Father of the Wilderness Act,” a man who embodied the spirit of the Pennsylvania Wilds, and all things environmental, wild and wonderful. As an environmental visionary, he raised the consciousness of an entire nation as early as the 1950s and 60s, long before Earth Day was created.