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Harrisburg, Penna.
In 1850, Harrisburg, the capital of Pennsylvania since 1812, hosted a single railway, constructed by the Pennsylvania Railroad, which ran just east of the city, paralleling the Pennsylvania Canal. Within three decades, around the time this…
Lewisburgh
After partnering with Thaddeus Fowler in Milwaukee during the early 1870s, Oakley Bailey moved in 1875 to Cambridge, Massachusetts, his wife's hometown, and set up his own lithography firm in Boston. Although Connecticut and Massachusetts towns…
Valley Forge, Pa.
Known today almost exclusively as the location where the Continental Army camped in the winter of 1777-78 during the American Revolutionary War, Valley Forge, as this lithograph demonstrates, was a small but thriving town throughout much of the later…
Catasauqua, Pa.
This representation of Catasauqua, in 1873 already a fairly substantial town located on the Lehigh River just east of Allentown, provides the perfect model for demonstrating the often complicated history behind the production of bird's-eye views. For…
Pennsylvania Railroad Car Shops
The Pennsylvania Railroad founded Altoona specifically as a location for the repair and new construction of its locomotives and freight and passenger cars. The facilities, begun in 1850 and expanded continuously throughout the following seventy-five…
Clearfield
Clearfield was named after the numerous open fields, thought to have been cleared by bison that once roamed western Pennsylvania, that were discovered where what today is known as Clearfield Creek flows into the West Branch of the Susquehanna River.…
Punxsutawney
Although the first settlers-other than Native Americans-came to the Punxsutawney area in the early nineteenth century, growth was relatively slow. By 1850 the town’s population had reached barely 100 inhabitants. The predominant industries were…
Shenandoah, Pa.
The borough of Shenandoah is located about fifteen miles southwest of Hazelton, within the Western Middle coalfield of Pennsylvania’s anthracite coal region. Laid out in 1862 in reaction to the burgeoning need for coal during the Civil War, the…
Homestead
Homestead, located about seven miles south of Pittsburgh on the Monongahela River, was home to the Homestead Steel Works, the smoking conglomeration of buildings located here in the upper left, along the banks of the river. In the summer of 1892, the…
View of Ephrata
To anyone interested in bird’s-eye views of Pennsylvania towns during the late nineteenth century, the name of Thaddeus Fowler appears on a seemingly endless number of panoramic images. He was the most prolific of all the view makers, drawing and…