HISTORY: Historic Huntingdon, 1767-1909, Chapter 9, Turnpikes & Railroads, Huntingdon County, PA

Contributed for use in the USGenWeb Archives by Nancy Lorz

Copyright 2007.  All rights reserved.
http://www.usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm
http://www.usgwarchives.net/pa/pafiles.htm 
_____________________________________________________________________ 

Historic Huntingdon, 1709-1907.  Huntingdon Old Home Week, September 
5-11, 1909.  Souvenir Edition.  Huntingdon, Pa.: Historical Committee 
of the Old Home Week Association, 1909.
_____________________________________________________________________ 

      Looking East From Blair Factory, Huntingdon, Pa. [photo]

60

                               CHAPTER IX.

                         Turnpikes and Railroads

  On the 4th of March, 1807,  the Legislature appointed commissioners 
to take stock "for the purpose of making an artificial or turnpike road 
from Harrisburg through Lewistown and Huntingdon to Pittsburg," and 
when a sufficient number of shares had been subscribed the Governor was 
authorized to issue letters creating the subscribers a corporation, to 
be styled:  "The president, managers, and company of Harrisburg, 
Lewistown, Huntingdon and Pittsburg turnpike road."

           The Lewistown and Huntingdon Turnpike Road Company

was organized and incorporated under the act of March 4, 1807, and 
constructed the road between these two boroughs.  The Legislature, in 
an act passed March 26, 1821, making appropriations for the improvement 
of the roads and streams of the state, authorized the Governor to 
subscribe for three hundred and forty shares of the stock of this 
company.

                                Railroads

  The Pennsylvania Railroad. - Various projects for the construction of 
a railroad across the State from east to west, were discussed from time 
to time, and surveys of various routes made, but no decisive action was 
taken until April 13, 1846, when the Pennsylvania Railroad Company was 
incorporated by act of Legislature, with an organized capital of seven 
and one-half million dollars.
  In June, 1850, the road, with a single track, was com-

61

pleted to Huntingdon.  On Thursday, the 6th, the first locomotive 
arrived, and on the next day trains ran regularly between this point 
and Philadelphia.

              The Huntingdon and Broad Top Mountain Railway.

  On the 6th of May, 1852, a bill incorporating "The Huntingdon and 
Broad Top Mountain Railroad and Coal Company," received the approval of 
Governor Bigler.
  On Monday, July 30, 1855, the engine "Beaver" passed over the road 
for a distance of eight miles, and on the 13th of August, trains 
commenced to make regular trips daily as far south as to Marklesburg 
station.  By the close of the year the line was open to the bridge at 
Stonerstown and in February following, the first coal was carried by 
rail to Huntingdon.

                       The East Broad Top Railroad.

  The East Broad Top Railroad and Coal Company was organized under an 
act approved April 16, 1856.  The work of construction was commenced on 
the 16th of September, 1872, and the road opened for business to 
Orbisonia, a distance of eleven miles from its northern terminus, Mount 
Union station, on the Pennsylvania Railroad, on the 30th of August, 
1873, and to Robertsdale, the southern terminus, on the 4th of 
November, 1874.