Two recently donated artifacts from the endless cable pumping system in the old Volcano oil fields are on display at Mountwood Park. The wooden storage tank, foreground, and the eccentric pump were received from Jay-Bee Oil and Gas in Ritchie County. The exhibits are at the welcome center at Mountwood Park just off the parking lot of the marina. (Photo by Jess Mancini)

VOLCANO — Two new artifacts from the oil era at Volcano are on display at Mountwood Park.

The park has obtained a wooden oil storage tank and a pump that were part of the endless cable pumping system invented by W.C. Stiles Jr. The ruins of the Stiles mansion, Thornhill, remain at Mountwood Park.

The tank and the eccentric pump were donated to the park by Jay-Bee Oil and Gas Inc. of Ritchie County, said Mike Naylor, treasurer of the Friends of Mountwood Park. The articles were in the woods in Wood County, he said.

“We saw it in the woods along Route 50,” Naylor said.

The artifacts and others from the Volcano oil fields are located at the visitors center at the end of the parking lot to the marina.

Also kept outside are a wheelhouse, information kiosks about notable Volcano residents and other oil field equipment.

The storage tank is probably from 125-150 years old, Naylor said. Abraham Burghoff was the barrel maker in Volcano who used white oak to make the staves.

The pump was made by the Bessemer Co. from Pennsylvania. It was probably made in the early 1900s, maybe before, Naylor said.

The outdoor exhibits are among the most popular as people can go to the park at any time to see them, he said.

Articles from the endless cable system and from the days when Volcano was active in oil are getting more difficult to find, Jeremy Cross, director of Wood County parks, said. Most of it is more than 100-years old.

“A lot of this stuff is one-of-a-kind now,” Cross said.

The condition of the wooden tank is unusual, too, for its age, he said. The tanks generally would have rotted away over the years and the effects of weather, but the wood used was either redwood or western cedar, which is rot and weather resistant.

“It’s really getting hard to find these things, especially the wood stuff,” Cross said.

Anyone who has an artifact related to the oil and gas industry in Volcano they would like to donate to the park, can contact Naylor at 304 485-5365 or Cross at the park, 304 679-3611.

Anyone interested in joining the Friends of Mountwood also can contact the park, Cross said.

Friends of Mountwood have done much to care, promote and encourage use of the park where the group has participated in numerous events, such as Woof Fest, Volcano Days and the fishing derby.

“They really do a lot for the park,” Cross said.

The endless cable pumping system could pump as many as 40 oil wells from one central power station. It was installed in the 1870s and dismantled about a century later.

Stiles was born in Philadelphia and settled in the Volcano area in 1864. He established the Volcanic Oil and Coal Co. and in 1866 established the Laurel Fork and Sand Hill Railroad to carry oil to the refineries then located in Parkersburg.