Magdalena Open-Air Museum of the Oil Industry

The museum is in the area of early oil exploitation at Gorlice, south-east of Kraków, on the site of the former Magdalena oil well. After Ignacy Lukasiewicz invented the kerosene lamp at Kyiv in Ukraine in 1853, he came to the Gorlice region to develop some of the world’s first oil wells. The area became the cradle of the Polish oil industry. The centrepiece of the museum is the drilling tower, a conical structure of timber with an external staircase that visitors can climb to see the view. Alongside it is a forge where drill bits were sharpened. A reconstruction shows how oil was collected into barrels at the well-head. The collection includes early kerosene lamps, sample bottles of different grades and sources of oil, collection tanks, a ‘nodding donkey’ pump, a steam pump and a covered wagon for collecting oil drums. The museum was created in 2012 by former oil worker Kazimierz Dudek with the support of a voluntary association.

Magdalena Open-Air Museum of the Oil Industry
Skansen Przemyslu Naftowego Magdalena
Lipowa 14
38-300 Gorlice
Poland
+48 (0) 600 - 491470
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