Gallery
Lake near Scotia
Scotia was an American village that was located in Patton Township, Centre County, Pennsylvania, at 40°47′59″N77°56′46″W / 40.79972°N 77.94611°W . Although the community was called Scotia, the name of the local post office was Benore (Ben being the Gaelic for "mountain [of]").
This village got its start when Andrew Carnegie, through the Edgar Thomson Steel Company, leased large tracts of township land that had iron ore. Small-scale mining had taken place here since the late-eighteenth century; Carnegie organized a larger effort to exploit the deposits, beginning in 1880. Ore was removed from a broad open pit, washed to separate it from clay, and loaded onto railcars.
The Pennsylvania Railroad extended its Fairbrook Branch to the village in 1881 and began hauling the ore to steel mills in Pittsburgh. There was also an extensive narrow-gauge railroad in the pits to haul ore to the washer, and several artesian wells and a reservoir to supply water for ore washing. [1]
Carnegie sold the ore deposits to the Bellefonte Furnace Company in 1899, feeling that they were no longer economical to work and ship to Pittsburgh. Immediately after the sale, the Bellefonte Central Railroad built a new branch from Graysdale to Scotia, allowing the ore to be shipped directly to the company's furnaces rather than take a roundabout route on the PRR.
After the mining halted circa 1913, all of the assets of the Bellefonte Furnace Company were sold at foreclosure in 1914. [1] The Bellefonte Central then abandoned its line to Scotia in 1915, [2] and the PRR in 1927. [3] The village had already been vacated in 1922 or 1923. [4]
There was a brief attempt to revive mining at Scotia during World War II when the Bellefonte Central received Reconstruction Finance Corporation money to build a new branch from Alto to Scotia to serve the new facilities; however, the mine was only briefly in operation before the cessation of hostilities, and soon ceased permanently. [5] The area is now encompassed by Pennsylvania State Game Lands No. 176. [4] h
The Bessemer and Lake Erie Railroad is a class II railroad that operates in northwestern Pennsylvania and northeastern Ohio.
Union Railroad is a Class III switching railroad located in Allegheny County in Western Pennsylvania. The company is owned by Transtar, Inc., which is a subsidiary of Fortress Transportation and Infrastructure Investors, after being acquired from U.S. Steel in 1988. The railroad's primary customers are the three plants of the USS Mon Valley Works, the USS Edgar Thomson Steel Works, the USS Irvin Works and the USS Clairton Works.
The Lehigh Crane Iron Company was a major ironmaking firm in the Lehigh Valley from its founding in 1839 until its sale in 1899. It was founded under the patronage of Josiah White and Erskine Hazard, and financed by their Lehigh Coal & Navigation Company, which hoped to promote the then-novel technique of smelting iron ore with anthracite coal. This was an important cost and energy savings technique, since either an expensive charcoaling nor coke producing process and transport costs was totally eliminated so produced a great acceleration in the underpinnings of the American industrial revolution.
The Bellefonte Central Railroad was a shortline connecting Bellefonte and State College, Pennsylvania. Constructed in the late 19th century to haul local iron ore to furnaces in the Bellefonte region, it later hauled freight traffic to Penn State and lime for steelmaking from local quarries. The line to State College was abandoned in 1974, and most of the remaining railroad in 1984, but a small portion is still used by the Nittany and Bald Eagle Railroad.
The Catasauqua and Fogelsville Railroad was built in the 1850s to transport iron ore from local mines in Lehigh and later Berks County to furnaces along the Lehigh River in eastern Pennsylvania. Originally owned by two iron companies, the railroad later became part of the Reading Company, and parts of it remain in operation today.
The Central Railroad of Pennsylvania was a short railroad of 27.3 miles (43.9 km) built to connect Bellefonte, Pennsylvania with the Beech Creek Railroad at Mill Hall, Pennsylvania. Sustained by shipments from the Bellefonte iron industry, the abandonment of the iron furnaces there led to its demise in 1918.
The Nittany Valley Railroad was a Pennsylvania shortline built to haul iron ore to blast furnaces near Bellefonte.
The Mont Alto Rail Road was a railroad in Franklin County, Pennsylvania, originally built to connect the blast furnaces of the Mont Alto Iron Company to the Cumberland Valley Railroad. It was later extended south to reach Waynesboro.
The Bellefonte and Snow Shoe Railroad was a coal-hauling railroad in Centre County, Pennsylvania. Begun in 1859, it came under the control of the Pennsylvania Railroad in 1881. Closing of mines in the 1930s resulted in the decline of traffic on the railroad, which was abandoned in 1959.
Graysdale is an unincorporated community in Patton Township, Centre County, Pennsylvania, United States, located at 40.8130°N 77.9548°W.
Struble is an unincorporated community in Ferguson Township, Centre County, Pennsylvania, United States.
John Wesley Gephart was a Bellefonte, Pennsylvania lawyer and industrialist. Educated in Bellefonte and at Princeton University, Gephart's diligence and intelligence were already marked when he was admitted to the bar at the end of 1876 and joined the Bellefonte law practice of James A. Beaver in 1877. He took a prominent part in the civic and moral life of the town, and enjoyed a reputation as a skillful lawyer and charismatic orator. In 1891, he became president of the newly organized Valentine Iron Company, and thereafter became increasingly devoted to furthering industry and commerce in his home town. He laid aside his legal practice in 1893, after becoming the superintendent of the new Central Railroad of Pennsylvania, to become a full-time industrialist.
Nittany Furnace, known earlier as Valentine Furnace, was a hot blast iron furnace located in Spring Township, Centre County, Pennsylvania, United States. Placed in operation in 1888 on the site of an older furnace, it was an important feature of Bellefonte economic life until it closed in 1911, no longer able to compete with more modern steel producers.
The Bald Eagle Valley Railroad was a subsidiary of the Pennsylvania Railroad which owned several rail lines in central Pennsylvania. It had its genesis in the Tyrone and Lock Haven Railroad, a financially troubled railroad chartered in 1857, which was unable to complete more than a small portion of its line before it was reorganized as the Bald Eagle Valley and funded by the PRR in 1861. Completed from Tyrone to Lock Haven in 1865, it was completely controlled by the PRR and did not operate independently. However, it retained its corporate existence for some time, acquiring branch lines into the Snowshoe coal region and an extension from Bellefonte to Lemont before being merged into the PRR in 1908.
The Lewisburg and Tyrone Railroad, previously the Lewisburg, Centre and Spruce Creek Railroad, was a subsidiary of the Pennsylvania Railroad (PRR) in central Pennsylvania. Originally intended to connect the Susquehanna Valley with Tyrone and the ore lands to its northeast, it was built in two discontinuous and never-connected pieces, one from Tyrone to Fairbrook and one from Lewisburg to Lemont. These served as lightly trafficked branches of the PRR into the early 20th Century. The line from Tyrone to Fairbrook passed into the hands of the short line Bellefonte Central Railroad in 1927, but the PRR's manipulations ensured its abandonment in 1941. The line between Lewisburg and Lemont was severed in 1970 and was gradually cut further back towards Montandon. Regular service ended on the last remaining part of the line in 1997, and it was abandoned in 2008.
Edmund Blanchard was a lawyer and prominent businessman in Centre County, Pennsylvania. He was an early promoter of rail transportation in the area.
Bellefonte Furnace was a hot blast iron furnace located in Bellefonte, Pennsylvania. Founded in 1888, it was the first hot blast, coke-fueled iron furnace to be built in Centre County, Pennsylvania. While its founders hoped to transform Centre County's iron industry with modern technology, the furnace struggled to operate at a profit and was out of operation from 1893 until 1899. Thereafter, it operated more or less continuously until 1910, and was demolished four years later. It should not be confused with the charcoal-fueled Bellefonte Furnace and Forge on Logan Branch, which was replaced by Valentine Furnace.
The Ironton Railroad was a shortline railroad in Lehigh County, Pennsylvania. Originally built in 1861 to haul iron ore and limestone to blast furnaces along the Lehigh River, traffic later shifted to carrying Portland cement when local iron mining declined in the early 20th century. Much of the railroad had already been abandoned when it became part of Conrail in 1976, and the last of its trackage was removed in 1984.
The Pine Grove Iron Works was a southcentral Pennsylvania smelting facility during the Industrial Revolution. The works is notable for remaining structures that are historical visitor attractions of Pine Grove Furnace State Park, including the furnace stack of the Pine Grove Furnace. The site was listed on the National Register of Historic Places on April 13, 1977 for its significance in architecture and industry. It includes seven contributing buildings, two structures, fourteen sites, and two objects.
The US iron and steel industry has paralleled the industry in other countries in technological developments. In the 1800s, the US switched from charcoal to coal in ore smelting, adopted the Bessemer process, and saw the rise of very large integrated steel mills. In the 20th century, the US industry successively adopted the open hearth furnace, then the basic oxygen steelmaking process. Since the American industry peaked in the 1940s and 1950s, the US industry has shifted to small mini-mills and specialty mills, using iron and steel scrap as feedstock, rather than iron ore.
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