Frank Cleveland's Oil Refinery
The striking of oil in Pennsylvania’s first well, the world's first successful oil well in Titusville, was a boon to all of Northwestern Pennsylvania, including Erie County. Like many people, a young Frank Cleveland took advantage of the rush to oil wealth, which by the 1870s was a stable business, and opened a refinery in the City of Erie. His oil venture lasted only a few years, but an ambitious Cleveland looking for more opportunities would soon to be the impetus to Erie’s most well-known manufacturers of engines and boilers. Frank F. Cleveland was born in Steuben County, New York, on January 11, 1853. With the outbreak of oil excitement in Pennsylvania, Frank Cleveland, in the 1870s, started an oil refinery in Erie, and continued to engage in that business for six years. Afterwards, he made successful investments in oil lands, and then embarked in the business of manufacturing mill and machinery castings in Erie, under the firm name of Cleveland & Company. In 1879,