Tidioute Borough Hall is located at 174 Main Street, Tidioute PA 16351.
Phone: 814‑484‑7424.
Beginnings
Tidioute, in midst of most picturesque surroundings, hills 500 to 700 feet high, covered thickly with forests, where the Allegheny River makes a beautiful curve, crossed here by a suspension bridge built between 1860-70, was famous as an oil-producing community, and the center of a large and excited population, now a quiet residence of wealth and refinement. Also on banks of the Allegheny is the Cornplanter Reservation, given to the great Seneca chief and his heirs forever, as a reward for military service and influence during the War of 1812; in 1866, the State Legislature authorized the erection of a monument here, inscription, "Gyantwahia, The Cornplanter, Died at Cornplanter Town, Feb. 18, 1836, aged about 100 years." [1]
According to tradition a girl new to the wilderness fainted upon hearing the hoot of an owl, and her question upon recovering, "Did he hoot?" gave the name of the town of Tidioute. The place was settled in part by members of the Harmony Society from the village of Economy in Beaver County, and this society owned much of the timber land in the section. The oil boom of 1860 multiplied the population many times and resulted in the building of several tributary villages, the most famous of which was wicked Babylon, on the hill above the river. Drillers sank their wells on Tidioute Island and even anchored rafts in the river and drilled in the bed of the stream. With the passing of the boom Tidioute has lost much of its prosperity. [2]