Barb Zolli

Barbara Turk Zolli joined the Drake Well Museum staff in 1990. She served as Museum Educator before becoming director of the Commonwealth site where Edwin Drake drilled the well that launched the modern petroleum industry in 1859.

She also oversees the Pithole Visitor Center and McClintock Oil Well #1 for the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission. Pithole City was an oil boomtown that lasted 500 days, and McClintock #1 has been in production since 1861.

Barbara earned her undergraduate degree from the Massachusetts College of Art in Boston and taught art for 15 years before moving to Pennsylvania in 1981. In 1992 and 1998 she completed Cooperstown Graduate Program in Museum Studies requirements toward a master’s degree from the State University of New York.

A life-long educator, Barbara is committed to providing relevant, accurate, multi-sensory, and entertaining learning experiences for museum visitors at Drake Well. Anyone who feeds "Mr. Ed" a plastic apple in the Oil Transportation exhibit hears the horse’s side of the story!