LESLIE'S ILLUSTRATED, New York, Jan. 17, 1885

• Thorn Creek oil boom
• Butler County, Pennsylvania

The full front page shows: "The Roller-Skating Craze.--The Critical Moment in the Experience of an Amateur". Inside prints include: "World's Fair and Cotton Centennial Exposition at New Orleans..." "Pennsylvania - Scenes in the New Oil Region at and Around Phillips City" which has six scenes; "The Attractions of Southwestern Travel - The Fine Work of a Party of Playful Cowboys" "Louisiana - The World's Fair and Cotton Centennial Exposition..." "Ohio - The Hocking Valley Mining Troubles - Interior of the Pinkerton Police Guard-House at Buchtel - the Midnight Alarm" and more
Sixteen pages, very nice condition.

Background: The 1884 Thorn Creek oil boom and the rapid rise of Phillips City, Pennsylvania, stand out in petroleum history due to the staggering, unprecedented output of its gushers and the hyper-transient nature of its boomtown. The epicenter of this surge was the legendary Armstrong No. 2 well, which blew out on October 27, 1884, producing an astonishing 10,000 to 12,000 barrels of oil per day—a phenomenon exceptionally rare for eastern Appalachian oil fields, where typical wells yielded only a fraction of that volume. This localized flood of crude was so immense that it briefly collapsed regional oil prices and required thousands of wooden storage barrels to be assembled on the spot to capture the runaway surge. The boom created Phillips City almost overnight, spawning a densely packed settlement of wooden shacks, supply stores, and saloons, yet the high-pressure reservoir depleted so rapidly that the entire boom dissipated within a year, leaving Phillips City to completely vanish into a historical ghost town and making contemporary photographs, records, and artifacts from this fleeting 1880s event exceedingly rare today.