The Hotel State College is a State College landmark, known as the home of the popular Corner Room restaurant. In 1855, James Jack opened “Jack’s Road House” at the corner of College Avenue and Allen Street. At the time, the hotel was a resting place for travelers waiting for trains across the street.
The eighteen ironworks that operated across Centre County throughout the nineteenth century, including Centre Furnace, Rock Ironworks, Eagle Ironworks, Logan Furnace, Harmony Forge, and Pennsylvania Furnace, followed practices developed in Europe centuries earlier. The county had the resources necessary for making iron: timber, limestone, and iron ore, along with two major streams, Bald Eagle Creek and Spring Creek.
Union Cemetery in Bellefonte is one of the oldest cemeteries in Centre County and the resting place of many of the county’s early notable leaders.The first known burial took place in 1808, and the cemetery was chartered in 1856. Beginning with five acres on Howard Street, it has expanded over the years to nearly 120 acres.
The Bellefonte Art Museum for Centre County showcases the work of artists from Centre County and around the world. It also hosts regular art classes.The museum is in the Linn House, which was built in 1810 by Philip Benner and is in the Bellefonte National Register of Historic Places District.
Public motion picture screenings in Centre County paralleled the growth of the movies as a popular form of public entertainment in rural and small-town America in the first half of the 20th century, and their transformation to part of a wider range of entertainment in the late 20th and early 21st century.
The Mid State Trail is a 327-mile hiking trail that runs from the border of Maryland in Bedford County to the border of New York in Tioga County. Marked with rectangular orange blazes, many miles of the trail pass through the southern and eastern parts of Centre County. The trail originated in the late 1960s, […]
The Centre County Library, founded in 1939, serves readers with four locations and a bookmobile. The creation of what is now a county library system began with the generosity of Bellefonte resident, Ann Elmira Humes,who agreed to donate her home, the historic Miles-Humes House, for a public library.
The Palmer Museum of Art is Penn State’s art museum. It is the largest art museum between Pittsburgh and Philadelphia. A new $85 million, 73,000-square-foot museum opened in June 2024 within the Penn State Arboretum. It nearly doubles the museum’s size and includes twenty galleries, as well as new education and event spaces, a museum store and café, and a sculpture path.
The Cold Stream Dam is a popular recreation spot on State Route 322 in Philipsburg. Throughout its history, the dam has suffered mishaps, most notably in 1936, when it broke and water flooded the downtown. However, the dam has survived to remain an important local resource.
The Pennsylvania Match Company, founded in Bellefonte in 1899, grew to become one of the largest match producers before a reduced consumer demand for matches led to its closing. Known locally as the “Match Factory,” the sprawling brick complex is now owned by the American Philatelic Society.