A popular mural on Oil City’s South Side is being replaced due to damage from the elements over the past five years.
The mural “I see a train a comin’,” which shows a train coming out of a tunnel, is mounted on the side of the State Street Furniture building by Veterans Memorial Bridge. It is slated to be replaced due to the panels deteriorating and warping, Kathy Bailey, the Oil City Main Street manager, said.
“It was not an easy decision, but a necessary one,” Stew Armstrong, the Oil City Main Street artist liaison, said of replacing the mural by Diane Adams of Washington, Pennsylvania.
After consulting with professional muralists and contractors, it was determined that the mural could not be repaired and if it was not taken down, it might cause damage to the building it is mounted on, Armstrong and Marcy Hall, chair of the Main Street public art committee, said.
Many people have reached out to the Main Street program to tell them how much they like the train mural and that they are sad to see it come down, Bailey said.
“We loved the design. It became part of the scenery. We’re so glad people have enjoyed it for the last five years,” Bailey added, noting that “I see a train a comin’” was the first mural the Main Street program commissioned.
The mural will be stored in the hope it can be installed somewhere else, probably indoors, Armstrong said. He added that details of the damage won’t be known until the large mural, made of 8-foot by 4-foot panels, is down and can be examined.
Michael Allison, a muralist from the Altoona area whose panel installation in Oil City of the mural “Chief Cornplanter and the Oilmen” has worked out very well, was contacted to paint the new mural, Bailey said.
She noted that the Chief Cornplanter mural, which can be seen from the Central Avenue Plaza, is probably the second most popular mural in town after the train mural.
The train theme will continue in the new mural, which will feature a steam locomotive with an early map of the Oil Creek Railroad in the background.
The new mural is also constructed out of panels but made of a different material, and it will be installed next week, weather permitting, Bailey said.
The process of taking down the old mural and putting up the new one will take at least three days, Armstrong said. He added that the site of the mural can’t be accessed without a lift.
The slope of the hillside, vegetation and the surface of the building itself add to the challenge, Armstrong said.
Once the mural is installed, Bailey said the Main Street Program plans to hold a reception for Allison in the coming weeks.
“When we put up a mural we want it to last for years and years,” Bailey said. She added that the public art commitee is looking for more opportunities for murals or other forms of art to be placed in the city.
“Public is the important part of public art,” said Hall, who added that she enjoys getting feedback about the murals in the city and wants to have some sort of public engagement project to hear from residents as to what kind of public art they want to see going forward.
Bailey, Armstrong and Hall also said that while the existing public art in Oil City commemorates the area’s oil history and heritage, they also want to branch out to other themes that express the present and future of the town.
In addition to public input, the committee is also looking for businesses that are interested in hosting or sponsoring public art installations, they said.
