Forgotten PA

Documenting interesting, historic, forgotten and abandoned places in the Keystone State.

06/21/2022

A neat look inside the Henry Clay iron furnace at Coopers Rock, WV from a weekend hike. The few furnaces that dot the region are usually sealed off or completely collapsed in on themselves. I was surprised to see this one clear, so of course I crawled in for a quick video and photos! So surreal to think of the quiet forested site you’re standing in being a bustling industrial plot almost 200 years ago…

“The ruins of the Henry Clay Iron Furnace, located in the woods of Coopers Rock State Forest in West Virginia, is an impressive stone structure. Built between 1834 and 1836 for the Tassie and Bissell Corporation, it could produce four tons of pig iron per day, employing over 200 people. It was the first steam-powered blast furnace in western Virginia. The furnace was formerly surrounded by a small community of dwellings with a store, church, and schoolhouse. The iron was floated down the Cheat River.”

09/20/2021

In the 1940s, 10 million gallons of fuel was stored underground at this location in Beaver. To throw off prying N**i eyes, a “farm” was built on top of it. This skeleton of a steel barn that covered a storage tank is one of the remnants.

09/01/2021

This great old place near the Youghiogheny River in Connellsville always captured my imagination. Sadly, it was recently demolished.

07/20/2021

Hey y'all. I've noticed some increased interest in this page in the past couple weeks with new likes and comments. If you haven't noticed, there's a lack of any new content for the past (eh hem) THREE YEARS. I promise to resurrect this project soon. Stay tuned!

03/12/2018

Came across the old Concord schoolhouse in Rostraver over the weekend. Built in 1830, it was a subscription school. Since there was no ed. funding, families paid a monthly subscription to send their kids there, in many cases 25 cents per student. The Free Public School law of 1834 changed that. This was the last subscription school built in the township.

10/06/2017

The former Arlington Hotel in California, PA. A few blocks from the Monongahela River, it is rumored to have been a stop on the Underground Railroad.

09/29/2017

A neat view from Historic St. Peter’s cemetery in Brownsville, Pa.

09/26/2017

West Overton village.

09/19/2017

Mount Vernon Furnace- Westmoreland County.

06/08/2017

A section of Braddock Road winds through the woods near Fort Necessity. The road, with a deep history, was originally called the Nemacolin Trail, after the Lenape Indians who blazed it in the early 1750s. In 1754, the road was widened by George Washington and his Virginia Regiment. A year later, General Braddock was buried in the road after the British were defeated at the Battle of the Monongahela. Along with Braddock on the expedition was George Washington and Daniel Boone. In 1803 Meriwether Lewis used the road to reach Pittsburgh, where he procured the boats to complete the Lewis and Clark expedition to the Pacific. The trail was later used as part of the Underground Railroad.

04/08/2017

Neat signage painted on this old store in Brownsville, Fayette County.

02/26/2017

This is the "S Bridge" in Washington Co. The stone bridge, completed in 1818, was a part of the Cumberland Rd. (later the National Highway) and served an important role in western expansion. It's the last bridge of its kind in Pennsylvania. A historical marker beside it reads, "...over it passed countless wagons and stages uniting the East and the growing West."

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California, PA

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