Reorganized in the interest of Culver, Penn & Co.’s creditors, the Reno Company developed its property methodically. No. 18 well, finished in May of 1870, pumped two-hundred barrels and caused a flutter of excitement. Fifty others, drilled in 1870-1, were so satisfactory that the stockholders might have shouted “Keno!” The company declined to lease and very few dry-holes were put down on the tract. Gas supplied fuel and the sand, coarse and pebbly, produced oil of superior gravity at five to six-hundred feet. Reno grew, a spacious hotel was built, stores prospered, two railroads had stations and derricks dotted the banks of the Allegheny. The company’s business was conducted admirably, it reaped liberal profits and operated in Forest county. Its affairs are in excellent shape and it has a neat production today. Mr. Culver and Hon. Galusha A. Grow have been its presidents and Hon. J. H. Osmer is now the chief officer. Mr. Osmer is a leader of the Venango bar and has lived at Franklin thirty-two years. His thorough knowledge of law, sturdy independence, scorn of pettifogging and skill as a pleader gained him an immense practice. He has been retained in nearly all the most important cases before the court for twenty-five years and appears frequently in the State and the United-States Supreme Courts. He is a logical reasoner and brilliant orator, convincing juries and audiences by his incisive arguments. He served in Congress with distinguished credit. His two sons have adopted the legal profession and are associated with their father. A man of positive individuality and sterling character, a friend in cloud and sunshine, a deep thinker and entertaining talker is James H. Osmer. Cranberry township, a regular petroleum-huckleberry, duplicated the Reno pool at Milton, with a vigorous offshoot at Bredinsburg and nibbles lying around loose. Below Franklin the second-sand sandwich and Bully-Hill successes were special features. A mile up East Sandy Creek—it separates Cranberry and Rockland—was Gas City, on a toploftical hill twelve miles south of Oil City. A well sunk in 1864 had heaps of gas, which caught fire and burned seven years. E. E. Wightman and Patrick Canning drilled five good wells in 1871 and Gas City came into being. Vendergrift & Forman constructed a pipeline and telegraph to Oil City. Gas fired the boilers, lighted the streets, heated the dwellings and great quantities wasted. The pressure could be run up to three-hundred pounds and utilized to run engines in place of steam, were it not for the fine grit with the gas, which wore out the cylinders. Wells that supplied fuel to pump themselves seemed very similar to mills that furnished their own motive-power and grist for the hoppers. A cow that gave milk and provided food for herself by the process could not be slicker. Gas City vaporized a year or two and flickered out. The last jet has been extinguished and not a glimmer of gas or symptom of wells has been visible for many years.