Pine Grove Furnace POW Interrogation Camp

Posted by on Oct 8, 2020 in | Comments Off on Pine Grove Furnace POW Interrogation Camp Located near Pine Grove Furnace within the state park of the same name in Cooke Township, Cumberland County, a 200-acre plot of land was the site of a unique sequence of historical events over the past 225 years. In the mid-18th century, iron ore was discovered along nearby Mountain Creek, which led to the development of Pine Grove Iron Works, a large-scale iron mining and pig iron production...
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Trailheads

Posted by on Mar 13, 2020 in | Comments Off on Trailheads Summer is the busiest season on the Pennsylvania Trails of History. Daytrippers enjoy a wealth of options for guided or free-range touring. Families find places to create lasting memories and help stave off the dreaded “learning loss” of summer. Outdoor enthusiasts break up their recreational time, or wait out bad weather, with a gallery visit or two. Numerous summer camp offerings are available...
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Editor’s Letter

Posted by on Aug 22, 2017 in | 0 comments “Persons and places conceive each other.” While preparing this edition of Pennsylvania Heritage, I was reminded of this quote from the preface of an American studies textbook I read as a graduate student, American Ground: Vistas, Visions and Revisions, edited by Robert H. Fossum and John K. Roth. It continues: “No people would have become American without a place of their own. Nor would any...
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Pepper Hill Fire of 1938

Posted by on Aug 22, 2017 in | 0 comments In 1933 President Franklin Delano Roosevelt established the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) as a New Deal program, and several camps were located in Pennsylvania. The CCC was charged with various types of projects including structural improvements, transportation enhancement, wildlife preservation, flood control and fire protection. When several forest fires broke out in the vicinity of...
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Castanea … From Blight to Backcross Breeding

Posted by on Aug 22, 2017 in | 0 comments Not far from my home at the base of the South Mountain in Cumberland County, there is a wide spot in the road where you can park a couple cars at the edge of a block of public land. From that place, the visible but overgrown bed of a Colonial-era haul road ascends the mountain. Scattered along the road are the small, flat and circular remains of 18th- and 19th-century charcoal kilns that...
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CCC Worker Statue, Pennsylvania Lumber Museum

Posted by on Aug 22, 2017 in | 0 comments America’s woodlands were still in recovery from deforestation when the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) was established in 1933 as one of several work relief programs initiated by President Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s New Deal. The program achieved two ends with a single effort by giving young men the opportunity to work to provide income for their unemployed families while simultaneously...
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Warren County: Gem of the Alleghenies

Posted by on Nov 30, 2013 in | Comments Off on Warren County: Gem of the Alleghenies “To the south … an expanse of arable land upon the gentle slope from the volley to the distant heights, dotted with green fields, waving grain, fruitful orchards and farm buildings with ever and anon an oasis of growing timber, remnants of the dense growth of stately pine and hemlock that formerly forested the region, present an alluring scene of beauty and grandeur, excelling...
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Clinton County: Still Part of Penn’s Woods

Posted by on Nov 30, 2013 in | Comments Off on Clinton County: Still Part of Penn’s Woods Clinton County, one of the sixth-class counties of Pennsyl­vania, occupies 900 square miles of river valley and mountain land near the geographical center of the state. Nearly two-thirds of the area re­mains forested, al though most of the trees are second growth after a near denuding of the land by a booming lumber industry in the second half of the last century. It was in the wood­lands of...
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Susquehanna County: A Touch of New England, 1869-1927

Posted by on Nov 30, 2013 in | Comments Off on Susquehanna County: A Touch of New England, 1869-1927 Susquehanna County, one of several counties formed from territory originally claimed by both Connecticut and Pennsylvania, reflects a blend of New England and Pennsylvania traditions. Although the land would remain part of Pennsylvania, the majority of pioneer settlers to this northern tier region were actually from Connecticut and other New England states. It was not until 1787, however, that...
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Driving Team In The Big Woods

Posted by on Nov 30, 2013 in | Comments Off on Driving Team In The Big Woods During the early days of lumbering in Pennsylvania, small water-powered, up-and­-down sawmills were located wherever the best trees stood in the stream valleys. Only the best, most accessible trees were cut and hauled to the mill by oxen or horses or occasionally floated on the stream which powered the mill. The saw­ed boards were then carried out of the woods on wagons or sleds to villages...
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