Soft Coal’s Soft-Spoken Diplomat

Posted by on Nov 26, 2013 in | Comments Off on Soft Coal’s Soft-Spoken Diplomat Wearing a straw boater, he rode in the passenger seat of the Cadillac, and forlornly surveyed the pick­eting miners who blocked the lane leading into the village of St. Benedict in Cambria County. He sig­naled his manservant – serving now as bodyguard and chauffeur as well – to proceed through the human blockade. Angry strikers taunted them, shouting obscenities, as they drove up the...
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Lost and Found

Posted by on Nov 26, 2013 in | Comments Off on Lost and Found Lost The round barn was an unusual form of farm building. Although praised by advocates for providing maximum floor space, increased storage, and inexpensive construction costs, few were actually built. Of three erected in Centre County, the James Beck Round Barn in Spring Mills, Neff Township, was capable of housing twenty head of livestock. Constructed in 1913 by Aaron Thomas of Centre Hall,...
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Lost and Found

Posted by on Nov 26, 2013 in | Comments Off on Lost and Found Lost Schuylkill County’s first official courthouse was erected in Orwigsburg in 1815, four years after the creation of the county. The building, enlarged in 1846, housed government offices until 1851, when the county seat was moved to Pottsville. Three years later, the Arcadian Institute occupied the building, but the academy failed. In 1873, a group of investors organized the Orwigsburg...
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Lost and Found

Posted by on Nov 26, 2013 in | Comments Off on Lost and Found Lost Charles Bailey built a log barn in the Potter County seat of Coudersport in 1900. He employed the most primitive log-building technique, using logs in their natural round shape which he joined together with simple saddle notches, requiring them to extend beyond each corner in a rustic manner. An oddity for its time, Bailey’s twentieth-century barn appeared more rustic and primitive...
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Bookshelf

Posted by on Nov 26, 2013 in | Comments Off on Bookshelf Guide to Pennsylvania Troops at Gettysburg By Richard Rollins and David Shultz Rank and File Publications, 1998 (106 pages, paper, $17.95) The Battle of Gettysburg was the nation’s most fierce military engagement. Pennsylvania alone dispatched well more than twenty-four thousand men to the epic onslaught, waged the first three days of July 1863, that resulted in more than fifty-one...
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Lost and Found

Posted by on Nov 26, 2013 in | Comments Off on Lost and Found Lost In 1845, less than five years after entering politics, William Bigler (1814-1880) built a handsome Italianate-style residence in Clearfield. Before settling in the Clearfield County seat, he apprenticed with his brother John at The Centre De­mocrat, published in Bellefonte, Centre County. In Clearfield, he amassed a fortune in the lumber business. He served in the state senate from 1841 to...
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The Aaronsburg Story

Posted by on Nov 26, 2013 in | Comments Off on The Aaronsburg Story Thanks to Penn State coach Joe Paterno and his loyal fans, it’s not uncommon to find tens of thousands of motorists jamming Centre County roads on autumn weekends. Fifty years ago this fall – Sunday, October 23, 1949, to be precise – thirty thousand people from throughout the United States converged not in State College to enjoy a football game but in the considerably smaller...
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Executive Director’s Message

Posted by on Nov 25, 2013 in | Comments Off on Executive Director’s Message Remembering the twentieth century has become a preoccupation bordering on obsession. As the lists of greatest moments and most important people grows daily, I am equally intrigued not only by what we choose to recall but the way in which we decide to commemorate the past. Over the past one hundred years Pennsylvanians have remembered their history by constructing a stunning array of statues,...
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Bookshelf

Posted by on Nov 25, 2013 in | Comments Off on Bookshelf Pennsylvania Architecture: The Historic American Buildings Survey, 1933-1990 By Deborah Stephens Bums and Richard J. Web­ster, with Candace Reed Stem Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission, 2000 (629 pages; cloth, $85.00; paper, $65.00) This hefty volume befits its subject: it is a landmark book devoted to landmark buildings. Copiously illustrated, Pennsylvania Architecture: The Historic...
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Shorts

Posted by on Nov 25, 2013 in | Comments Off on Shorts “Elocution, Orthography, and Mental Arithmetic: Victorian School Days,” an exhibit examining the nineteenth-century educational experience from the one-room rural schoolhouse to the sprawling urban university, is on view at Penny­packer Mills through Saturday, June 30, 2001. The exhibit interprets these experiences through objects and artifacts originally belonging to members of the...
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