Town Hill

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Elevation sign on Town Hill, overlooking I-68/US 40; the Sideling Hill road cut shown distant left 2016-06-25 13 23 58 View of the entrance sign and beyond towards Interstate 68 and U.S. Route 40 (National Freeway) at the Town Hill Overlook on Town Hill in eastern Allegany County, Maryland.jpg
Elevation sign on Town Hill, overlooking I-68/US 40; the Sideling Hill road cut shown distant left

Town Hill is a mountain range that is located in Allegany County, Maryland and Bedford and Fulton counties in Pennsylvania.

Contents

Description

The southern end of this mountain range is 2.25 miles northwest of Kiefer in Allegany County. It trends northeasterly, and ends about 1.5 miles south of the town of Emmaville in Fulton County. Its highest elevation is 2000 feet.

Interstate 70 crosses Town Hill at a narrow angle to the mountain, following the ridge for four to five miles as it slowly climbs one side and descends the other. In Maryland, Interstate 68 skirts the southern edge of the mountain while the original alignment of U.S. Route 40, now signed as U.S. Route 40 Scenic, crosses over it.

Part of Buchanan State Forest lies on Town Hill in Fulton County.

South of the Potomac River in Hampshire County, West Virginia, Town Hill rises to a height of 1,306 feet (398 m). [1]

Geology

Town Hill is held up by the Mississippian age Pocono Formation, which dips to the northwest. The Mississippian-Devonian Rockwell Formation and Devonian Catskill Formation are exposed on the southeast flank of the mountain below the Pocono. Rays Hill, to the east, and Town Hill form a syncline. [2]

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Allegany County is located in the northwestern part of the U.S. state of Maryland. As of the 2020 census, the population was 68,106. Its county seat is Cumberland. The name Allegany may come from a local Lenape word, welhik hane or oolikhanna, which means 'best flowing river of the hills' or 'beautiful stream'. A number of counties and a river in the Appalachian region of the U.S. are named Allegany, Allegheny, or Alleghany. Allegany County is part of the Cumberland, MD-WV Metropolitan Statistical Area. It is a part of the Western Maryland "panhandle".

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Interstate 68</span> Interstate in West Virginia and Maryland

Interstate 68 (I-68) is a 112.9-mile (181.7 km) Interstate Highway in the US states of West Virginia and Maryland, connecting I-79 in Morgantown, West Virginia, east to I-70 in Hancock, Maryland. I-68 is also Corridor E of the Appalachian Development Highway System. From 1965 until the freeway's construction was completed in 1991, it was designated as U.S. Route 48 (US 48). In Maryland, the highway is known as the National Freeway, an homage to the historic National Road, which I-68 parallels between Keysers Ridge and Hancock. The freeway mainly spans rural areas and crosses numerous mountain ridges along its route. A road cut at Sideling Hill exposed geological features of the mountain and has become a tourist attraction.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Fulton County, Pennsylvania</span> County in Pennsylvania, United States

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sideling Hill</span>

Sideling Hill, also Side Long Hill, is a long, steep, narrow mountain ridge in the Ridge-and-Valley physiographic province of the Appalachian Mountains, located in Washington County in western Maryland and adjacent West Virginia and Pennsylvania, USA. The highest point on the ridge is Fisher Point, at 2,310 feet (700 m) in Fulton County, Pennsylvania.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tuscarora Sandstone</span> Bedrock unit in Pennsylvania, Maryland, West Virginia, and Virginia, USA

The Silurian Tuscarora Formation — also known as Tuscarora Sandstone or Tuscarora Quartzite — is a mapped bedrock unit in Pennsylvania, Maryland, West Virginia, and Virginia, USA.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Geology of Bedford County, Pennsylvania</span>

Bedford County, Pennsylvania is situated along the western border of the Ridge and Valley physiographic province, which is characterized by folded and faulted sedimentary rocks of early to middle Paleozoic age. The northwestern border of the county is approximately at the Allegheny Front, a geological boundary between the Ridge and Valley Province and the Allegheny Plateau.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Wills Creek Formation</span> Bedrock unit in the Eastern United States

Wills Creek Formation is a mapped Silurian bedrock unit in Pennsylvania, Maryland, Virginia, and West Virginia.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Pocono Formation</span>

The Mississippian Pocono Formation is a mapped bedrock unit in Pennsylvania, Maryland, and West Virginia, in the United States. It is also known as the Pocono Group in Maryland and West Virginia, and the upper part of the Pocono Formation is sometimes called the Burgoon Formation or Burgoon Sandstone in Pennsylvania. The Pocono is a major ridge-former In the Ridge-and-Valley Appalachians of the eastern United States

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Huntley Mountain Formation</span> Bedrock unit in Pennsylvania, United States

The Huntley Mountain Formation is a late Devonian and early Mississippian mapped bedrock unit in Pennsylvania, in the United States.

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Rays Hill</span>

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Broad Top is a plateau located in south-central Pennsylvania. It extends into Huntingdon County to the north, Fulton County to the southeast, and Bedford County to the southwest. It is bounded to the west by Saxton Mountain and Terrace Mountain, and to the east by Sideling Hill. In Bedford County, Harbor Mountain forms the southern boundary. Trough Creek Valley lies between the mountains.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Old Port Formation</span>

The Devonian Old Port Formation is a mapped bedrock unit in Pennsylvania, USA. Details of the type section and of stratigraphic nomenclature for this unit as used by the U.S. Geological Survey are available on-line at the National Geologic Map Database. Current nomenclature usage by U.S. Geological Survey restricts the name Old Port Formation to Pennsylvania, but correlative units are present in adjacent states.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Keyser Formation</span>

The Late Silurian to Early Devonian Keyser Formation is a mapped limestone bedrock unit in Pennsylvania, Maryland, Virginia, and West Virginia.

The Devonian Scherr Formation is a mapped bedrock unit in Pennsylvania, Maryland, Virginia and West Virginia.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Foreknobs Formation</span> Geological formation in the United States

The Devonian Foreknobs Formation is a mapped bedrock unit in Pennsylvania, Maryland, Virginia, and West Virginia.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Rockwell Formation</span>

The Rockwell Formation is a late Devonian and early Mississippian mapped bedrock unit in West Virginia, Maryland, and Pennsylvania, in the United States.

The Devonian Needmore Formation or Needmore Shale is a mapped bedrock unit in Pennsylvania, Maryland, Virginia, and West Virginia.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Nescopeck Mountain</span> Ridge in Columbia and Luzerne Counties, Pennsylvania

Nescopeck Mountain is a ridge in Columbia County and Luzerne County, in Pennsylvania, in the United States. Its elevation is 1,594 feet (486 m) above sea level. The ridge is a forested ridge, with at least two types of forest and two systems of vernal pools. It is a very long and unbroken ridge with two water gaps: one carved by Catawissa Creek and one carved by Nescopeck Creek. This later gap was exploited as a transportation corridor with the construction of the Lausanne–Nescopeck Turnpike between the respective frontier communities at Lausanne Landing and Nescopeck in 1805 connecting the newly developing Wyoming Valley with Philadelphia and the Delaware River valley; cutting off over 100 miles between Philadelphia and Wilkes-Barre. Today's Route PA 93 derives from this historic pack mule road.

References

  1. Geographic Names Information System Feature Detail Report for: Town Hill
  2. Map 61: Atlas of Preliminary Geologic Quadrangle Maps of Pennsylvania. Amaranth, Breezewood, and Mench Quadrangles. PA Geological Survey (Map Index)

39°43′29″N78°22′44″W / 39.72472°N 78.37889°W / 39.72472; -78.37889 (Town Hill)