Thomas Holmden

Thomas Holmden. , Thomas Holmden's father emigrated to the US in 1824 and by 1837 had settled on a 650 acre tract of land in western Pennsylvania. When he died in 1849 his sons split the land between them. The soil was so poor the Holmdens lived in poverty depending more on their rifles and products of the forest than they did their farmland., In 1859 oil was discovered about six miles north of the Holmden property. In 1864 Thomas and his brother Walter leased a portion of their land to James Faulkner, an oil developer, who gave them each $1.00 and promised that if oil was found the Holmdens would receive one-fourth of the oil produced. In June 1864 they began drilling on the Holmden property. They struck oil on January 7, 1865. On January 20 Thomas sold his 159 acre farm for $100,000 which today would be about $1,420,000., In May of 1865 the town of Pithole City began to spring up on the Holmden property and by the middle of July had a population of 2,000 persons and by Christmas, 20,000. At its peak Pithole City had 54 hotels, 3 churches, a newspaper, an 1,100 seat theater, a railroad, the world's first pipeline and a redlight district not unlike Dodge City's., Thomas and Sarah Holmden left Pithole City in 1866 moving to Cleveland, Ohio where they purchased land along Scranton Avenue with the intention of farming it. After a while Thomas decided to sell the property and developed it into a residential neighborhood. They lived on Scranton Avenue in a large house. Thomas, a republican, became involved in politics serving as a city councilman in Ward 12 for many years and as a member of the infirmary committee of city council. Sarah died in 1870 and Thomas married Jerusha Mackey, in 1871. At his funeral he was described as kind-heated, with a benevolent and charitable disposition and of a rare genial nature.