Philipsburg Historical Foundation

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Philipsburg Historical Foundation

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The Philipsburg Historical Foundation is a 501(c)3 non-profit established to preserve and protect Philipsburg's Heritage.

11/07/2026

The first Post Office was established in Philipsburg July 1, 1813. It was located at the corner of Front & Laurel perhaps in John Henry Simler's first house. The first mail was carried on horseback by Peter Dysel a one-armed man who left Bellefonte Sunday at 2pm and traveled via Philipsburg, Clearfield, Anderson Creek, Sandy Lick Forks to Franklin, 131 miles. It took till Wednesday to get there and a full week to return. It cost .25 cents to send a letter more than 400 miles. A letter took a week to get from Philadelphia. The PO was located in various places including the Simler House. In Nov. of 1933, the WPA authorized the construction of the 1st Federal PO at the corner of Centre and Laurel Streets. Franklin Roosevelts CCC constructed it. It was occupied in Nov. of 1935 and continues to be used now.

10/30/2026

Halloween traces back to Celtic traditions brought to America by Scotch and Irish settlers in the 1800's. It was connected to All Saints Day celebrated by the Catholic Church. It was first becoming noticed in the mid 1800's mostly in the mid-Atlantic and South, as Puritan New England didn't recognize pagan holidays. It was a celebration of the light to darkness change in the environment, festival for a successful harvest, and reverence for the departed souls. There was feasting and dancing and the wearing of costumes to frighten the evil spirits. In its earlier emanations Halloween was a pretty rowdy time for pranking, throwing corn, waxing or soaping windows, tying doorknobs, and my favorite, upsetting outhouses or moving them to the Post Office or School. Trick-or-Treating really got started in the 1940s and 50's as a way to cut down on the pranking. Halloween now can only be called massive. Beginning around the turn of the 21st century everything changed. It got to be more about the treat than the trick! Candy companies, movies, costume makers, elaborate outdoor displays, advertising, has created a commercial juggernaut that will consume more than $13 Billion of our dollars this year. There's a bit of culture shock when a bag of Halloween candy goes for $25, and you need 3 bags!

10/18/2026

The original Union Church (Old Mud Church) began construction in 1820. The original structure was of square logs. It also was the school. There are no pictures because there was no photography yet. We can surmise it looked like the 1st picture. We see a historic log church The 2nd picture is of the historic Catholic Church at Drifting. The original Union Church didn't have a bell tower. The surrounding cleared lot became the town's burial ground. The construction cost was $343 which was collected by subscription. It was basically built by two men, Samuel Turner and William Kinnear. Hardman Philips provided the largest subscription, $25. Some who had no money donated materials or work. It was called the Union Church because all denominations used it. It was in the earliest years the school and a meeting house. In 1841 the church we see today was born. Another subscription was taken for $300. A Gothic style bell tower was added as well as a vestry and pulpit in the back of the church. The interior was lathe and plastered with installed pews. The outside was to be roughcast (what makes it look like Mud) and a shingled roof added. When it was completed, the cost was beyond the $300. Hardman Philips paid the additional funds and claimed the church for the Anglican (Episcopalian) congregation. The other local subscribers sued Philips winning the case keeping it the Union Church to be used by all faiths. An interesting sidelight is that the bell hanging in the bell tower was the work bell from the screw factory (1st screw factory in America).

09/26/2026

Nostalgia is the quiet pull of memory that brings back the sights, sounds and things that shaped our lives. It can be some of the simplest things that created the time. Today I'm thinking about C**n Skin Caps, Hula Hoops, Skate Boards. Davy Crockett, one of the earliest Disney offerings in 1955 created a huge market for c**n skin caps. Every boy wanted the entire outfit. The Hula Hoop started in 1958. Made by Wham-O, 25 million were sold in the first 4 months. I remember a giant Hula Hoop contest held in the Presqueisle St, Parking lot with more than 100 kids. Our first Skateboards were metal shoe skates fastened to a piece of plywood. They became the rage thanks to the Beach Boys surfer music. They were absolutely uncontrollable straight ahead death traps. We called it "Sidewalk Surfing".

09/20/2026

Philipsburg has always had some sweet businesses, but the sweetest of all was the Haworth Candy Co. The original brick structure was located at the corner of N. 3rd and Locust St. (Genna Ice). Started in 1921, the company specialized in premium boxed chocolates. It employed 20 people. Like so many businesses in Pburg, this one also experienced a disastrous fire that destroyed the building and the business in 1924. Estimates of damage were $100,000, building and equipment. The company took offices in the Rowland building and by early 1926 a new 3 story 100' x 40' building was erected (Navasky Factory). The Journal article about the grand opening indicated that the "chocolate was applied by hand, with different designs indicating the different flavors." Expansion brough more new equipment in 1927. In addition to being sold locally, "Penn Craft" was sold in department stores, and sent to western states like Oklahoma, Texas and Arizona. In Oct. of 1928, the Journal reported that there had been no activity at the site for several months and in Nov. of 1929, the equipment was removed and sold and the business came to an end.

09/13/2026

Over the past weekend, local Eagle Scout candidate Caiden Rickard, along with some fellow scouts and family members, completed the cleaning of 250 Veteran's headstones in the Philipsburg Cemetery. The project, in planning since spring, will earn him an Eagle Scout designation, the highest honor in scouting and one of the most demanding youth achievements in the US. The process takes years and the final task is to complete a major service project. Philipsburg Cemetery with over 11,000 burials, 2,000 of which are Veterans was an ideal place for the work. One of the Veteran headstone's cleaned was Henry Warfel, Philipsburg's only medal of honor winner during the Civil War. Scouting is an outstanding program instilling the values of service and helping to build character. Things greatly needed in our self serving world.

09/05/2026

Labor Day grew out of the late‑1800s labor movement, when American workers—miners, timbermen, railroad crews, factory hands—pushed for fair wages, safer conditions, and the basic dignity of a day off. By 1894, the nation made it official: Labor Day, the first Monday in September would be dedicated to the people whose hands built the country.
In 1914, Labor Day carried extra electricity, which Philipsburg always had. Philipsburg held its first Labor Day parade, a celebration of the working families who powered the region. The very next day, September 8, the town hosted one of the biggest spectacles in its history: the staged Alley Popper train wreck, drawing thousands of spectators and putting the Philipsburg on the map. Labor Day has always been about ordinary people doing extraordinary work. Philipsburg lived that story then—and still does today.

08/28/2026

In the summer of 1821, the turnpike from Philadelphia to Erie was completed. Hardman Philips built what was the only screw mill in the US at that time. It is another amazing story of technological progress in the wilderness. The screw factory site is at Point Lookout beside the Moshannon Creek passed, as the only power available at that time was provided by a water wheel. These early screws, 1,000 gross per week, had a blunt tip, as the sharp tip process didn't exist. In fact in the end it was that improvement that doomed the endeavor, as well as the long road to market. In 1824, the Franklin Institute Exhibition in Philadelphia had this to say about Hardman's screw, made by American invention of his own iron; "The screws are superior to the best imported, and we hope that they will soon be brought into general use". Unfortunately, the wire tipped point and route to market ended the endeavor around 1837. The old factory burned in 1859. In 1915 the DAR acquired a piece of ground at the site and erected a memorial now visible at the site. The Foundation is looking to upgrade the monument and to apply for a PHMC historic marker.

08/16/2026

This week I thought we could look at what was in the Daily Journal 100 years ago this weekend. One of the first things I saw on the front page was this quip; "Be a real optimist regarding Philipsburg's future and show your faith by your works". Penn State finished its summer term and 2,200 students went home. Rudolph Valentino, early movie heartthrob, had an emergency appendectomy (he died a week later). Two armed bandits held up a train in Rawlins, Wyo. The percapita value of Los Angeles reached an incredible $4,285.71 making it the richest city on earth. You could buy a Orthophonic Victror Victrola for $160. And finally, Thomas Edison visited Bellefonte with his wife. According to the paper "he was especially interested in Bellefonte as it was the 2nd town in the US where he installed lights, the first being Sunbury". Well....sort of true.

08/07/2026

William G. 'Turk' Jones, the adman turned conservationist, was the first environmentalist I knew as a young person. He attended Bucknell studying Biology, then went to New York and became a successful Madison Ave. advertising executive. After 17 years as an "Adman" (1946) he quit, moved here and bought an abandoned farm near Kylertown that had acres of stripped ground, naming it Rolling Stone Tree Farm. He began growing fir trees on the slag piles left behind by early coal operators. He had ideas about what types of trees could survive and grow on this inhospitable ground. He connected with PSU and the US Forest Service and worked with them. He imported evergreens from Austria, Scotland and Norway as well as Douglas Firs from the Pacific Northwest. He also used hybrid poplars that grew very fast. By 1948, the first backfilling laws were enacted in PA forcing mine owners to remediate. Coal operators resisted, and the actual beginning of the tree planting didn't occur until the late 1950's. At that time, 'Turk' became a consultant to the Central PA Open Pit Mining Association. He bought another large farm with 800 acres of stripped land that became the Robert Bailey Estate Tree Farm where he continued his research and plantings. No one believed, including coal operators, that anything could be grown on this devastated land, but he persevered with his ideas and through his research, direction and oversite, 36 million trees were planted on formerly strip-mined sites in 17 PA counties. He received countless environmental awards. After the establishment of Earth Day in 1970, 'Turk' became a sort of folk hero, a new age "Johnny Appleseed". Students, scientists, broadcasters, all flocked to his incredible tree farms. He was featured in TIME Magazine, Reader's Digest, interviewed by Walter Cronkite, appeared on the TODAY show, wrote a book "The New Forest". He continued to inspire environmental restoration through reforestation here and overseas after his retirement. He died Nov. 1, 1981. When you visit Project 70 you are seeing his work all around you. The trees recently harvested in the area long Rt 504 were also his plantings. In fact, you can't drive anywhere around here without seeing his incredible legacy.

Address

203 N Front Street
Philipsburg, PA
16866

Website

http://www.phf1797.com/

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