Chimney Rocks

Among the more unusual listings for Pennsylvania in the National Register of Historic Places is a natural rock formation. Chimney Rocks is a prominent outcrop of fingerlike spires of limestone along the southwest face of Chimney Ridge overlooking PA Route 36 and the borough of Hollidaysburg in Blair County. The ridge is made up of two different formations of limestone, and a small vertical fault...
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Blair County: Center of Transportation

Blair County was among the last counties created by the Pennsylvania General Assembly. One factor which delayed the establishment of an additional county in the southern portion of central Pennsylvania was geography. The rugged, eastern slopes of the Appalachian Mountains, in which Blair County was eventually located, diverted settlers to other areas. Only after the discovery of iron ore...
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Shorts

On Saturday, May 14, 1994, guides at Hopewell Furnace National Historic Site will demonstrate traditional sheep­-shearing methods with both period and modern hand-held tools. They will also discuss the importance of farms and farming practices to an 1830s industrial community. To obtain additional details, write: Hopewell Furnace National Historic Site, 2 Mark Bird Ln., Elverson, PA 19520; or...
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Lost and Found

Lost Following World War II, the United States Steel Corporation’s massive Homestead Works in Allegheny County employed nearly fifteen thousand work­ers. The sprawling works, site of the infamous Homestead Steel Strike of 1892, closed in July 1986 and demolition began soon after. But all is not lost. While much of the plant is gone, there are plans to pre­serve the Pinkerton Landing, site...
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Trainloads of Goodwill and Gratitude

Pittsburghers, on the evening of Saturday, November 15, 1947, witnessed a ceremony at the Pennsylvania Railroad (PRR) Station that marked the beginning of an extraordinary occurrence: the journey of a Friendship Train across the Keystone State. By the time it reached Philadelphia, three days and seven stops later, the train hauled an additional fifty-one cavernous boxcars packed to capacity with...
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WPA Diorama at State Museum of Pennsylvania

Under the auspices of President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal, specifically the Works Progress Administration (WPA), approximately one million objects for use as visual aids in the classroom had been produced by 1939 by Pennsylvania’s Museum Extension Program (MEP). From 1935 to 1943, the MEP churned out costume plates, prints, lantern slides, architectural models, dioramas, puzzles, puppets,...
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