Blog of the Pennsylvania State Historic Preservation Office

Category: Crawford (Page 1 of 2)

Baseline Survey On the Road Again: Newly Documented Roadside Resources in Pennsylvania

“I can’t wait to get on the road again/On the road again/Goin’ places that I’ve never been/Seein’ things that I may never see again/And I can’t wait to get on the road again…”

-Willie Nelson, “On the Road Again,” 1980

With Pennsylvania’s long transportation history – from railroads and canals to the Pennsylvania Turnpike  and the many beautiful bridges throughout the Commonwealth – it’s no surprise that the teams working on the Baseline Survey Project discovered and inventoried a multitude of Pennsylvania’s previously unrecorded roadside resources!

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Messerall Road Bridge: The Next Chapter

The main character of our story, the Messerall Road Bridge, began its life over Pine Creek near East Titusville in 1876, carrying traffic associated with the local oil and lumber industries. The bridge served as a crossing over Pine Creek nearly 140 years before it was closed to vehicular traffic in 1987.

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Exploring African American Heritage in Pennsylvania’s DCNR Parks and Forests

Pennsylvania is rife in human history – if you’re in Pennsylvania, consider yourself surrounded with nearly 20,000 years of it! So, it should come as no great surprise that its 121-state park and over 2 million-acre forest system, administered by the Department of Conservation and Natural Resources, are steeped in both natural and human history.

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Precious Metal Preservation: the Lift

Nestled amongst the oak-covered hills of rural northwest Pennsylvania until very recently sat an iron artifact from a bygone era. Built in 1876 by the Wrought Iron Bridge Company of Canton, Ohio, this elegant, metal arch structure is what is termed, in historical bridge parlance, as a bowstring through-truss.

Originally owned and maintained by Crawford County, it has gone by numerous names over the years, including East Titusville Bridge, Pine Creek Bridge and, more recently, Messerall Road Bridge. Whatever name it goes by, it is now more commonly known for being the last of its kind in western Pennsylvania.

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Hobgoblins in the Humanities

Can I tell you about something that gives me chills and sends me running? October is Arts & Humanities Month. It’s also time for Halloween, so when I was invited to submit a post, our friends at SHPO asked if I could kill two birds with one stone and do justice to both October happenings. I decided to oblige by writing about some bad spirits that bedevil me at work: the humanities hobgoblins! Continue reading

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