Venango County was formed March 12, 1800, one of several counties carved out of the sparsely populated region of northwestern Pennsylvania.  A half century before the Venango sector had attracted the attention of the French and in 1753 they selected it as a site for one of the forts which would claim the region for their king.  When they fled at the end of the French and Indian War, the British quickly responded by building Fort Venango at the confluence of French Creek and the Allegheny River in 1760.  The fort was burned and the soldiers massacred in Pontiac's uprising in 1763.  After the Revolutionary War, a company of United States soldiers came to build Fort Franklin.  The community of Franklin was laid out in 1795 surrounding the fort and it    

became the seat of the new  county.  Lumbering, farming and later iron furnaces were the main industry.  Growth was slowed until the summer of 1859 when the world's first successful oil well was completed in the northern part of the county.  The county was in the world's spotlight, speculators and entrepreneurs rushed in.  For more than 100 years oil fueled the county's economy.  Although there is still some oil and gas production other business and industry is paramount.