Pennsylvania is dominated by the Alleghany Mountains, a crumpled braid that curves like a rainbow from southwest to northeast across the state. While not particularly tall (2,000-3,000 feet) the mountains presented a 100 mile wide barrier to western advancement for early settlers due to the rugged up and down of parallel ridges and valleys. This is the heart of Pennsylvania’s natural resource supply of lumber, coal and oil. Its exploitation fed the industrial explosion of Pittsburgh to the west and the Lehigh Valley to the east (Allentown-Bethlehem-Easton) during the hundred years from 1850-1950. It has been cold and rainy for days but as I strike out towards Pennsylvania oil country blue skies are overhead. The leaves are starting to turn in the dense forests that cloak the rugged landscape.
Avoiding the Pittsburgh metropolitan area we drop down to the banks of the Alleghany River near the town of Franklin where French Creek flows into the Alleghany from the northwest. The confluence of the two waterways has been an important site for hundreds of years as it marked the easiest path between Lake Erie to the north and the Ohio River (via the Alleghany) to the south. In 1740 Scottish fur trader John Fraser built a trading post here. The succession of French, British and finally Americans all occupied a fort on the site and in 1787 the town of Franklin was developed on the point of the confluence. Nestled in a narrow valley between the two waterways Franklin became the seat of Venango County and a booming oil town when oil was discovered in nearby Titusville in the mid-1800s.
Franklin, PA
The highway drops down sharply from the ridge south of the village and snakes its’ way along the Alleghany River making a bend at the northern end of the historic core, marked by a triangular town plaza.
North of the plaza sits the 1868 Venango County Courthouse and west of the plaza is the 1910 Venango County Jail.
Stretching southeast from the plaza is the main street, lined with imposing buildings, most of which were built during the oil boom years of the last half of the 19th Century.
Eight miles up the Alleghany the valley widens a bit at Oil City, another town that boomed in the late 1800’s when oil was discovered in the area. The valley is wide enough near Oil City that companies were able to build refineries and associated businesses.
Fifteen miles north of Oil City is the site of the world’s first oil well, Drake Park in Titusville.
Drake Well Museum
The presence of oil in western Pennsylvania had been known for hundreds of years due to the fact that it seeped to the surface in a number of locations. First collected and used as a medical treatment for rheumatism and sprains, in the 1850’s Samuel Kier built a cast-iron distillation still to refine crude oil into kerosene for lamps. The success of this process lead to a need for more oil and on August 27, 1859, Edwin Drake drilled the world’s first oil well in Titusville on the banks of Oil Creek. Oil was found at a depth of 69.5 feet and the first American oil boom was on. The tourist season is over and the museum closed but I am able to explore the grounds on a hazy fall day. By 1896 the boom had moved on and all that was left of the famous well was piece of casing pipe. 20 years later a monument was built nearby and in 1934 the American Petroleum Institute built a museum at the site along Oil Creek and presented it to the state of Pennsylvania. The current museum was built in 1964, the reproductions of Drake’s equipment added in 1986. Drake’s drilling equipment and well were contained inside of a wood building.
Inside are a reproduction of the drilling equipment and in the front right a replication of the pipe filling barrels with the oil.
Surrounding the oil well are other buildings and structures significant in the development of the early oil industry.
Leaving oil country we now strike southeast across the heart of the Alleghany Mountains. This is sparsely settled country, a constant roller coaster of asphalt up and down through the fall forest.
Finally a precipitous drop leads down into a broad valley, home to one of the Victorian jewels of Pennsylvania, Bellefonte.
Bellefonte, PA
James Dunlop and James Harris laid out the town of Bellefonte on the north bank of Spring Creek in 1795. The town was named Bellefonte (beautiful fountain) in honor of a large natural spring in the area. Bellefonte became a center for the booming iron foundries and manufacturing factories in the second half of the 1800s and in 1883 the Edison Company chose Bellefonte to be one of the first ten towns in the country to be electrified. The center of town rises north from Spring Creek along High Street displaying stunning Victorian buildings from Bellefonte’s golden age. At the top of the rise in the center of town is the 1855 Centre County Courthouse.
Standing in front of the statue and looking south the view is down High Street to Spring Creek (just beyond the second traffic light in the picture.)
Southeast of the courthouse sits the grand Brinkerhoff Hotel, originally built in 1866 and renovated in the 1880s. Business buildings from around the same period occupy the southwestern corner.
Walking south down towards Spring Creek.
At the base of the hill beneath the High Street Bridge Spring Creek flows quietly now through banks that were once lined with mills and factories. The south bank of the creek has mostly been cleared of buildings and now is a park and open green space. A few of the old buildings still stand on the north bank.
Across the creek stands the Gamble Mill, a grist mill that was built in 1894 on the site of a mill built in 1786, destroyed by fire in 1892, rebuilt and now a boutique hotel and restaurant.
The wealth that created Bellefonte came from the natural resources in the area: iron ore, limestone, coal and timber. The small creeks and valleys in the area were lined with “iron plantations” to turn those resources into iron. One of those was the Eagle Iron Works, founded along Bald Eagle Creek northwest of Bellefonte by Roland Curtin in 1810.
Eagle Iron Works
The Eagle Iron Works rose on the eastern bank of Bald Eagle Creek and operated in one form or another from 1810 until 1922. In its last days, the works operated the last cold-blast charcoal furnace in Pennsylvania. Early in the development of the complex in 1825 Curtin built a worker’s village south of the works and in 1831 built a mansion for himself on a rise east of the works. The state of Pennsylvania took over the site in 1971 and began a restoration process that continues to this day. To reach the village one crosses a one-lane bridge over Bald Eagle Creek and up the hill to the parking lot in front of the Curtin Mansion.
The mansion, completed in 1831 of local limestone consisted of 15 rooms on three floors with a large central hallway on each floor. The home was occupied by succeeding generations of the Curtin family until 1951. Unfortunately, as I see often on fall trips, it’s after the tourist season so the home is not open to viewing.
Behind the house down a gentle slope are the iron works.
The flume that carried water down the hill still snakes alongside the road to the left while the charging house rises above a ramp to the right. Raw materials were wheeled up the ramp and dropped down a hole in the chimney, a process known as “charging.”
Closer views shows the multi-level operation.
South across the road little is left of the worker’s village buried within verdant foliage. The 1850 foreman’s house is closest to the mill.
Standing in front of the foreman’s house the view is up the hill past the iron works to the Curtis Mansion.
By today’s standards this was a small operation, but at the time it was a very successful business typical of those in the area. When I leave the Bellefonte area the backroads thread through tidy farms, some operated by the local Amish.
But soon I head back into the Alleghany Mountains as they curve northeast along the west branch of the Susquehanna River leading to Williamsport.
Williamsport
Williamsport grew as a center for the central Pennsylvania lumber industry and later a manufacturing hub. The area reached the height of its prosperity around the turn of the 20th century. Due to the lumber industry in the late 1800s Williamsport claims to have been home to more millionaires per capita than any other city in the country. The lumber barons built their magnificent homes and churches along West Fourth Street in Williamsport. The entrance to the historic district is marked by gateposts.
The homes are in various states, some obviously restored, some not, some converted to businesses, others undergoing renovation. Concentrated in six blocks, every other block is crowned by a magnificent church. Let’s walk along W. Fourth Street.
East of the entrance gate to Millionaire’s Row is the view down West Fourth Street into the heart of historic Williamsport, the ornate newspaper building on the left and city hall on the right.
The streets downtown are just too narrow for the Lunch Box so I have to pass. Instead I head across the river onto the hills along the south bank for a totally different experience, a visit to the home of the Little League World Series.
Little League World Series
The home of the Little League World Series rises in red brick colonial elegance above Williamsport, a museum in the complex on the right and the league administration in the similar building in the distance.
Inside a labyrinth takes one through the history of the Little League, dotted with memorabilia. The first Little League game was played in Williamsport on June 6, 1939.
This is the Little League’s first home plate, carved from rubber in 1939 and only 14 1/8 inches wide rather than the current standard of 17 inches width.
Another display case displays artifacts from those early years, including a 1918 catcher’s mask, a 1939 bat, a 1868 baseball, and 1914 mitt.
It goes on and on…
The international appeal of Little League is front and center with displays from around the world. Here, a fielder’s glove made out of cardboard, paper, thread and wire came from Ado-Ekiti, Nigeria.
Every year the Little League World Series is held on the fields down the hill behind the museum and administration buildings.
Heading southeast from Williamsport once again we plunge into the roller coaster that is crossing the Alleghany Mountains.
Small towns often occupy the floor of the narrow valleys that huddle between these ridges and, as most of these villages were built long before the advent of the automobile, driving through can be a problem due to narrow roads. An example developed in Minersville. They allow parking on both sides of the street and a semi-truck and I were caught passing each other. Fortunately he also recognized the issue and so we carefully crept past each other. The lower part of his side mirror just tapped the upper corner of my mirror but no damage was done!
Leaving Minersville could have been even more of a problem as teh highway climbs through a residential neighborhood but fortunately I skated through without any more oncoming semi’s.
The roller coaster continues as I head farther southeast towards the outer suburbs of Philadelphia for our next stop.
Next up: The Winds of War
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