'When Oil Was King of the Black Swamp' at Wood County Museum

The talk will focus on the great oil and gas boom that began in 1880’s in Northwest Ohio and became the driving economic force for much of the region and its future. Thousands of wells were drilled and many of them were in Wood County and Hancock Counties which was the center of it all, as rural farm fields were studded by a forest of oil and gas derricks amid a harvest of black gold. With the gushers of success came a score of new towns and new people eager to claim a piece of the dream or maybe just a good job. Sometimes they did, sometimes not. We’ll cover many of the facets of this most pivotal area in the story of the Black Swamp.

Cost: FREE for members; $7 for non-members (tickets include a self-guided tour of the museum in addition to the program)

About the Speaker: Lou Hebert is a Toledo-area native who spent over 50 years working in broadcast newsrooms in this city (WCWA, WTOL, WDHO WSPD) and others around the nation including Detroit, Denver, Phoenix, and Chicago. He has reported and produced both radio and television news and is an award documentary and feature reporter, earning the coveted Peabody Award and numerous Emmys for TV production. In recent years, Lou has become a self-professed history nerd, writing and publishing several books on Toledo-area history, including Day by Day in Toledo and Toledo’s Hidden History.