The neighbourhood of Gorlice and the Low Beskids is crossed by the Ropa river with a near-by village of the same name (meaning "petroleum" in Polish). We can also find the following villages: Ropica Polska and Ropica Górna (bot referring in their names to petroleum). These names are not coincidental. Centuries ago, the inhabitants noticed the natural rock oil, petroleum, floating on the surface of water. At least from 16th century the inhabitants of the Low Beskids occupied themselves with its exploitation, collecting it from rivers and streams as well as shallow hand-dug wells. In those times, oil was used in folk medicine and for smearing carriage wheels. In time, the raw material began to attract attention of scholars: at the beginning of 19th century its natural occurance and influence on the neighbourhood of Gorlice was documented by Stanisław Staszic.

Thanks to this natural wealth of the Low Beskids, Gorlice and its surrounding area became the cradle of the Polish petroleum industry. As early as 1852, instead of hand-dug wells, duke Stanisław Jabłonowski, with help from Silesian miners, established the first petroleum mine on the so-called Empty Forrest in Siary. At the same time, Jan Zeh (1817–97) and Ignacy Łukasiewicz (1822–82) carried out their own studies in Lviv. Together, they obtained petroleum's distillate: kerosene. Later on, Łukasiewicz took on the research on the practical use of kerosene himself, by designing paraffin lamps.

Due to the discovery of petroleum deposits and the establishment of the first mines near Gorlice, in 1854 Łukasiewicz moved to the town and found employment in a pharmacy by the market place. In the same year the enhanced paraffin lamp was placed on one of the streets of Gorlice, first time in history. The inventor turned out to be an apt entrepreneur: at the moment of his death he was a proprietor of several petroleum mines and a refinery. Meanwhile, a large deposit of petroleum was discovered in the vicinity of Gorlice, near Kobylanki and Domaniewice. More and more modern oil wells were constructed, and characteristic pumpjacks were placed above smaller stripper wells. Many of them are still part of the neighbourhood's landscape, although most of the deposits are almost entirely drained.

The Carpathian Galician Petroleum Route leads to places associated with the beginnings of petroleum extraction and treatment near Gorlice. Apart from the remnants of old mines, it also features the Grease Merchant's Stables in Łosie, which demonstrates the old methods of petroleum use among the Lemkos who used to live in the town, as well as very interesting exhibitions of the private Museum of Petroleum Industry in Libusza and the Open-air Museum of Petroleum Industry in Gorlice.