The head of Parkersburg's Oil and Gas Museum wants the area's history of petroleum drilling to be it's newest tourist attraction.

Thursday, David McKain presented Wood County Commissioners a plan for a district which covers the area's history of drilling in the civil war era.

The commission endorsed the project, for which McKain also is seeking tourism grant money.

"It's to help preserve an incredible part of our heritage that we've not done very much with, until we opened the oil and gas museum, and started the park at Burning Springs," McKain told us. "It's just an add-on to this incredible story that this area has."

McKain told the commission that, in the early years of West Virginia's statehood, nearly all of its leaders had ties to the oil and gas industry.

The district includes portions of Wood, Wirt and Ritchie counties.