The county’s agricultural history is geographically bifurcated. The Allegheny Front divides the fertile Ridge and Valley region from the agriculturally less well-endowed Allegheny Plateau. On the plateau, diversified small-scale farming and industrial work intermingled, while in the valleys, there was a more agricultural economy.
Chartered by the Commonwealth in 1855, the Farmers’ High School of Pennsylvania by the early 1860s had become the first successful agricultural college in America. The impetus for the school that became Penn State came from the Pennsylvania State Agricultural Society founded to promote the state’s vast farming community.
Evan Pugh was the first president of the Farmers’ High School of Pennsylvania, the fledgling institution that, under his leadership, would become Penn State. Pugh’s great accomplishment did not come easily. Beginning in the early 1850s, state agricultural societies fueled a movement to establish agricultural colleges. These new institutions seemed oxymoronic to some — college […]
Andrew Gregg Curtin was the governor of Pennsylvania during the Civil War and one of President Abraham Lincoln’s staunchest supporters. Curtin was born in Bellefonte on April 22, 1815. His father, Roland Curtin, owned the Eagle Ironworks, and his mother, Jane Gregg, was the daughter of U.S. Senator Andrew Gregg, Curtin’s namesake. Curtin attended Bellefonte […]