A board of directors was elected and an $8,000 budget was proposed to hire a secretary and find a meeting space. Committees were formed to find available rooming places for young women in Oil City and to organize an employment agency to help young women find jobs. A community campaign was launched to raise the $8,000 budget for the new YWCA program. The response was generous and quick, helped in large part by the vigorous advertising from local businesses advocating for the new women’s organization. Many businesses insisted that while the city had a YMCA for boys, it was only fair that the women have a similar organization.

“A program to reach out for the groups of girls needing direction and leadership in this, the plastic period of young womanhood! If such training is good for and considered essential for our boys, surely it need no other argument to secure like privileges for Oil City’s girls. The Federation thinks not and has taken official steps to advance the work to the point above stated,” editorialized the newspaper.

LOCATION

The newly organized Girl Reserves group met at the Oil City YMCA on Seneca Street in June 1923. A total of 131 girls attended. Within a year, the members would reorganize as the new Oil City YWCA.

The meeting locations were varied as no permanent headquarters had yet been established. The first site for the new organization was a small meeting room above a West First Street store. Early records show the store was Jerko’s ice cream shop, now the site of the YMCA facility. The group soon outgrew the location and rented the second and third floors of the Lynch Building on Seneca Street. The space, located above the popular Sugar Bowl Restaurant, consisted of a few club rooms and a small gymnasium.

The Oil City YWCA roster of members continued to grow and one YW board member decided she could help with securing a permanent headquarters. Fanny Perkins, a Vermont native, moved to Oil City in the 1880s to each Latin and Greek at the Oil City High School, then located on Central Avenue. While teaching, she had rented a room in the 18-room, three-story Maxwell home on Central Avenue just a few blocks from the school. Fanny eventually married George N. Reed who later became president of the Oil City National Bank. Active in the community, Fanny served on the Oil City School Board and the Oil City YWCA board.

In 1932, Fanny bought the Maxwell home, built by store co-owner and oil producer Samuel Maxwell and his wife Harriette “Hattie” Finley Maxwell. Seven years late, Fanny gave it to the Oil City YWCA to use as its headquarters.

There is folklore that suggests the Maxwell house is haunted. Hattie’s mother, Elizabeth Finley, lived for a while with her daughter and son-in-law. At the age of 92, she died in 1926 from burns in a heater fire accident in the home. Anecdotal tales over the years suggest one or both women still have a presence in the house as lights randomly are turned off and on, unusual noises can be heard and more.

The five bedrooms upstairs were available for rent to young single women attending college or working. The YW also provided temporary housing for female students attending the new Venango Campus and accommodations were made for “bunking in the gym” for two months.

The YWCA over the years has upgraded and expanded its facilities. In 1951, the organization built a $90,000 annex that included a gym, recreation room, storage area and kitchen. The club bought a two-story frame home next door on Central Avenue and razed to provide more property for future expansion. The latest project was in 1989 when the YW raised $750,000 to add a new wing on to the building.