Browse Items (26 total)

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…

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.…

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…

Thaddeus Fowler was born in Lowell, Massachusetts. He ran away from home at age fifteen, and four years later he enlisted in the Union Army at the start of the Civil War. Wounded at the Battle of Bull Run, he was honorably discharged in 1863 and…

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…

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…