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 Rouseville, PA Posted by:  vhasler
N 41° 28.097 W 079° 41.485
17T E 609272 N 4591569
The entry for Rouseville also has a description of oil fractionation.
Waymark Code: WMFZYA
Location: Pennsylvania, United States
Date Posted: 12/25/2012
Views: 2
The guidebook states that back in 1940, this town would have been described as:
"ROUSEVILLE (1,088 alt., 1,059 pop.), was called the Buchanan Farm until February 1861, when it was renamed for Henry Rouse who drilled a well that produced 150 barrels per day. In granting subleases Rouse, a Warren County schoolteacher, stipulated their forfeiture if intoxicating liquors were sold, and for a brief period the bonanza settlement smarted under enforced abstinence. Between 1870 and 1880 Rouseville’s population dropped from 10,000 to 688.
Stretching along the western side of the town, and extending beyond its southern limits, is the Penzoil Refinery, a maze of tall smokestacks, low building, and fractionating units that resemble silver-plated blast furnaces; this is one of the largest of the Pennsylvania crude oil refineries. Here substances, ranging from wax to gasoline, are extracted from crude oil by a process called fractionation, based on the varying vaporization points of the oil’s component parts. The multiple distillation is accomplished by means of heat, or by the use of steam and vacuum when it is necessary to protect substances whose molecular arrangement and lubricating qualities would be disturbed by heat. The continuity of the process necessitates an extremely elaborate apparatus that permits the departure of some fractions to storage and further processing, without interference with the further distillation necessary for other fractions.
The Pennsylvania crude oil area includes about one fourth of the State’s land acreage. Most oil thus far obtained has been found in sandy layers of reservoirs at depths reaching 3,000 feet. Being a viscous fluid, oil lodges among the grains of sand in the porous sandstone. Old-time methods recovered only 15 to 25 per cent of the total deposit. By pumping gas, air, or water into the sandy layers much of the previously unobtainable oil is forced to the surface.
South of Rouseville State 8 is lined with plants manufacturing steel barrels, glass bottles, and other containers. For miles the stench of oil assails the nostrils."
---- Pennsylvania: A Guide to the Keystone State, 1940
Coordinates are for the borough office building.
The refinery started as Penn Refining Co. in 1886. The Pennzoil site was purchased by Quaker State Company, and later Shell Lubricants Company. The facility closed in 2000 due to unfavorable economics from being a small, inland plant - and has been mostly dismantled leaving a brownfield site. Further history can be found here from the Oil 150 celebration.
The remaining piece of the refinery is a BHT manufacturer Merisol.
Current population is 520 - mostly employed in service and transporation industries of surrounding towns.
Book: Pennsylvania
Page Number(s) of Excerpt: 584
Year Originally Published: 1940
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