Layton | |
|---|---|
  Layton Location of Layton, Pennsylvania | |
| Coordinates: 40°5′24″N79°43′22″W / 40.09000°N 79.72278°W | |
| Country |  United States |
| State |  Pennsylvania |
| County | Fayette |
| Elevation | 250 m (810 ft) |
| Time zone | UTC-5 (EST) |
| • Summer (DST) | UTC-4 (EDT) |
| ZIP code | 15428 |
Layton is an unincorporated community in Fayette County, Pennsylvania.
Layton is the former site of a large brickworks, due to local deposits of flint clay.
It was also here that the Washington Run Railroad connected to the B&O Railroad. According to historian Franklin Ellis, "The Baltimore and Ohio Railroad Company was the first corporation which made any actual movement towards the construction of a railway line through the valleys of the Youghiogheny and Monongahela rivers." In 1826, the company secured approval from the Pennsylvania General Assembly to build a railroad from Baltimore, Maryland through the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania "to the Ohio River." The company was directed by legislators to complete its work within fifteen years. Surveys of possible sites for the B&O line in Fayette County were made between 1836 and 1838, but when planners realized that they would not be able to meet their fifteen-year deadline, they requested, and received, legislative approval to extend their completion date to February 1847. Unable to meet that extended deadline and now facing competition from the Pennsylvania Railroad, B&O executives were forced to abandon their planned expansion through Fayette County. As a result, the Pittsburgh and Connellsville Railroad Company, which was incorporated in 1837, took over the legislature's plan for railroad expansion and became the first railroad to open a line within the county. The Pittsburgh and Connellsville company then began purchasing the necessary land, rights of way and equipment, initiated the first construction efforts on its rail line, opened depot grounds at West Newton and Connellsville, and then also purchased land for stations at: "Port Royal, Smith's Mill, Jacob's Creek, Layton (foot of Big Falls), Old Franklin Iron Works, Smilie's Run (Dawson), and at Rists's Run, below Connellsville." The completed rail line to Connellsville was then officially opened in 1855. [1]
According to Ellis, Layton Station was situated on two hundred and seventeen acres of land that were originally patented on April 6, 1791 by "Mary Higgs (a daughter of John Shreve)" and named "Springfield." Deeded by Higgs to Francis Bryson on June 3, 1795, the land was then sold by Bryson on August 2, 1797 to George Johnston, who then transferred it to William Espy on April 2, 1806. Espy's sons, Hugh and Robert, who subsequently inherited the land in December 1813, sold it to Abraham Layton for two thousand three hundred and fifty-two dollars on October 25, 1821. Following Layton's death, his sons, Michael and Abraham Layton, operated keel boats along the river on the property to ship sand and glass products. They then sold the land to Daniel R. Davidson, who transferred it to Joseph Wilgus in 1864. Sometime around the mid to late 1860s, a pure deposit of silex, which was useful for manufacturing glass, was discovered on this land. [2]
As a village grew up around the station, it adopted the name of Layton. The first store there was opened by telegraph operator Henry Brollier, who also became the village's first postmaster. A second store was opened by P. M. Hunt in 1876. [3]
By 1880, B&O Railroad was leasing lines from the Pittsburgh and Connellsville company, and the population of Perry Township, where the Banning's and Layton railroad stations were located, had grown to one thousand four hundred and seventy-six. [4]
In 1899, a Pratt truss railroad bridge was built near Layton; it was designed by Taylor & Romine, built by A & P Roberts Co. of Philadelphia and the Pencoyd Iron Works, ultimately carried Legislative Route 26191 over the Youghiogheny River, and was subsequently added to the National Register of Historic Places on June 22, 1988. [5]
In early July 2022, the historic Layton Bridge, which had been converted from a railroad bridge to a one-lane bridge connecting Layton to Perryopolis and Route 51, was temporarily closed (through August 2022) for repairs to stabilize both the bridge itself and the tunnel providing access to it. According to District 12 bridge engineer Jeremy Hughes, "It's one of our few bridges that are over 100 years old and it's one of our few bridges that's a former railroad bridge." Civic officials decided to limit the bridge's weight restrictions to enable continued use for the immediate future by emergency vehicles and snow plows until the bridge could be replaced sometime around 2025. [6]
A five-bedroom house in Layton was used as the location for the fictional site of a rural home used by the fictional serial killer, Jame “Buffalo Bill” Gumb, for a subterranean holding pen and murder site in the 1991 film, "The Silence of the Lambs." [7] [8]
Fayette County is a county in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. It is located in southwestern Pennsylvania, adjacent to Maryland and West Virginia. As of the 2020 census, the population was 128,804. Its county seat is Uniontown. The county was created on September 26, 1783, from part of Westmoreland County and named after the Marquis de Lafayette.
Connellsville is a city in Fayette County, Pennsylvania, United States, 36 miles (58 km) southeast of Pittsburgh and 50 miles (80 km) away via the Youghiogheny River, a tributary of the Monongahela River. It is part of the Pittsburgh Metro Area. The population was 7,637 at the 2010 census, a decline from the figure of 9,146 tabulated in 2000.
Dawson is a borough in Fayette County, Pennsylvania, United States. The population was 352 at the 2020 census, a decline from the figure of 367 tabulated in 2010.
Perry Township is a township in Fayette County, Pennsylvania, United States. The population was 2,336 at the 2020 census, a decline from the figure of 2,552 tabulated in 2010. The Frazier School District serves the township.
The Youghiogheny River, or the Yough for short, is a 134-mile-long (216 km) tributary of the Monongahela River in the U.S. states of West Virginia, Maryland, and Pennsylvania. It drains an area on the west side of the Allegheny Mountains northward into Pennsylvania, providing a small watershed in extreme western Maryland into the tributaries of the Mississippi River. Youghiogheny is a Lenape word meaning "a stream flowing in a contrary direction".
The Great Allegheny Passage (GAP) is a 150-mile (240 km) rail trail between Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and Cumberland, Maryland. Together with the C&O Canal towpath, the GAP is part of a 335 mi (539 km) route between Pittsburgh and Washington, D.C., that is popular with through hikers and cyclists.
The Pittsburgh and Lake Erie Railroad, also known as the "Little Giant", was formed on May 11, 1875. Company headquarters were located in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The line connected Pittsburgh in the east with Youngstown, Ohio in the Haselton neighborhood in the west and Connellsville, Pennsylvania to the east. It did not reach Lake Erie until the formation of Conrail in 1976. The P&LE was known as the "Little Giant" since the tonnage that it moved was out of proportion to its route mileage. While it operated around one tenth of one percent of the nation's railroad miles, it hauled around one percent of its tonnage. This was largely because the P&LE served the steel mills of the greater Pittsburgh area, which consumed and shipped vast amounts of materials. It was a specialized railroad deriving much of its revenue from coal, coke, iron ore, limestone, and steel. The eventual closure of the steel mills led to the end of the P&LE as an independent line in 1992.
The Pittsburgh and West Virginia Railway was a railroad in the Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and Wheeling, West Virginia, areas. Originally built as the Wabash Pittsburgh Terminal Railway, a Pittsburgh extension of George J. Gould's Wabash Railroad, the venture entered receivership in 1908 and the line was cut loose. An extension completed in 1931 connected it to the Western Maryland Railway at Connellsville, Pennsylvania, forming part of the Alphabet Route, a coalition of independent lines between the Northeastern United States and the Midwest. It was leased by the Norfolk and Western Railway in 1964 in conjunction with the N&W acquiring several other sections of the former Alphabet Route, but was leased to the new spinoff Wheeling and Lake Erie Railway in 1990, just months before the N&W was merged into the Norfolk Southern Railway.
Ohiopyle State Park is a Pennsylvania state park on 20,500 acres (8,300 ha) in Dunbar, Henry Clay and Stewart Townships, Fayette County, Pennsylvania in the United States. The focal point of the park is the more than 14 miles (23 km) of the Youghiogheny River Gorge that passes through the park. The river provides some of the best whitewater boating in the Eastern United States. Ohiopyle State Park is bisected by Pennsylvania Route 381 south of the Pennsylvania Turnpike. The park opened to the public in 1965 but was not officially dedicated until 1971.
The Keystone Subdivision is a railroad line owned and operated by CSX Transportation in the U.S. states of Maryland and Pennsylvania. The line runs from Cumberland, Maryland, west to McKeesport, Pennsylvania, along a former Baltimore and Ohio Railroad (B&O) line. The line includes the well-known Sand Patch Grade over the Allegheny Mountains.
U.S. Route 119 (US 119) travels through Connellsville, Greensburg, and Punxsutawney, and bypasses Uniontown and Indiana. There are numerous other boroughs and villages along its 133-mile (214 km) route in the Keystone State. The southern entrance of US 119 is at the West Virginia state line one-half-mile south of Point Marion. The northern terminus is at US 219 two miles (3 km) south of DuBois, Pennsylvania. US 119 is in the National Highway System from the West Virginia state line to Exit 0 of PA Turnpike 66, and from US 22 to US 219. From US 22 to US 219, the highway carries the name of the Buffalo-Pittsburgh Highway; from US 22 to PA 56, it is also known as the Patrick J. Stapleton Highway; near Uniontown, it bears the name George C. Marshall Parkway.
The Washington Run Railroad was a branch line in Pennsylvania. Starting at a junction with the B&O Railroad in Layton, the line crossed the Youghiogheny River on a bridge and passed through a tunnel to continue to Perryopolis. From there, it continued to Star Junction on a track that ran parallel to today's Pennsylvania Route 51.
The Layton Bridge is a Pratt truss bridge over the Youghiogheny River in Layton, Pennsylvania. Originally built for the Washington Run Railroad, construction began 1893 and was completed in 1899. The last train crossed in 1931. The bridge and a tunnel immediately to its south were converted to a single automobile lane in 1933 as part of a road that connects Layton with Perryopolis, near the suspected location of the eighteenth-century Spark's Fort.
The PC&Y Railroad Bridge carries a single railroad track over the Ohio River, between Stowe Township, Allegheny County, Pennsylvania and Neville Island, Pennsylvania.
Broadford or Broad Ford is an unincorporated community in Connellsville Township, Fayette County, Pennsylvania southeast of Pittsburgh in the United States. Broadford is on the Youghiogheny River downstream from Connellsville. Galley Run, a tributary to the Youghiogheny River, joins here.
The Memorial Bridge is a structure that crosses the Youghiogheny River, connecting the eastern and western shores of Connellsville, Pennsylvania, US.
Coulter is an unincorporated community in South Versailles Township, Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, United States. The community is located along the Youghiogheny River, 14.3 miles (23.0 km) southeast of Pittsburgh.
Connellsville Union Passenger Depot, also known as the Connellsville Pittsburgh & Lake Erie Station, is a historic railway station located at Connellsville, Fayette County, Pennsylvania. It was built between 1911 and 1912 by the Pittsburgh and Lake Erie Railroad and Western Maryland Railway. It is a 1 1/2-story, rectangular brick building measuring 109 feet by 28 feet. It features a three-story tower, wide overhanging eaves, and hipped roofs on the building and tower covered in blue-green Spanish terra cotta tiles. It is in an American Craftsman style of architecture. It ceased use as a passenger station in 1939, after which it housed a car dealership and auto parts store. It was purchased by the Youghiogheny Opalescent Glass Company in the spring of 1995.
The Ohiopyle Low Bridge is an American structure that carries the Great Allegheny Passage trail across the Youghiogheny River in Ohiopyle, Pennsylvania.
Port Perry was a town along the Monongahela River near Braddock, Pennsylvania and by the mouth of Turtle Creek. It disappeared by 1945, having been gradually replaced by railroad tracks serving the nearby Edgar Thomson Steel Works.