Miller's Spring Trestle Disaster (Centre County)

Looking across what remains of Miller's Spring Trestle

Safety and progress are forever in a race against each other. However, when progress outdistances safety, only disaster awaits at the finish line. On June 11, 1878, that is exactly what awaited a train bound for Bellefonte.       

Killing the Town Too Tough to Die: The Austin Dam Disaster (Potter County)

The ruins of the infamous dam that caused the Austin Flood

    Remember playing with dominos? At some point in our lives, all of us have made a long line of neatly stacked dominoes. If you did everything right, once you toppled the first domino, the entire line would follow suit in a spectacular chain reaction. In the end, there was always quite a mess to clean up. 

    Engineering disasters are, to a degree, a lot like this simple form of amusement. Rarely are they the work of a singular cause, but rather are the product of multiple factors that when linked together at the right time and the right place culminate in destruction. Unbeknownst to the residents of a bustling lumber town in northcentral Pennsylvania, their community laid at the end of a domino chain of disaster that once set in motion, would change it forever. 

Bombs and Broken Promises: The Tragic Story of Alvira (Union/Lycoming Counties)

Welcome to Alvira: Population 0
Author's Photo

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    Bizarre concrete domes and crumbling foundations stand as monuments to the sacrifices made by an entire town and a broken promise that erased it forever.

Danger On The Rails: The Axemann Curve (Centre County)

The 1908 Wreck

    The completion of the Lewisburg & Tyrone Railroad from Bellefonte to Lewisburg in 1885 was a monumental transportation achievement for the region. Passengers and freight could now move faster than the steep and winding turnpikes had allowed them previously. The age of the iron horse had arrived. However, this new age would not come without dangers.

Revelton Ghost Town (Clinton County)

 

    

Revelton Iron Furnace
Author's Photo

    Hidden behind a curtain of hemlock and pine lies a portal to the past, a time when Central Pennsylvania’s vast industrial potential was being realized. During that era, much of the region was still relatively untamed. Extracting these sought after resources would require the determination and expertise of a unique breed of men. In the wilds of Clinton County, a short broad gentleman known as “The General” would exhibit all of those qualities, along with many more colorful ones, while taming this rugged country.

The Wreck of the Red Arrow (Blair County)

 

The jumbled wreckage of the Red Arrow
Image Retrieved From: https://www.gendisasters.com/

    Unsolved disasters are a subject that continues to captivate us decades and even centuries after they occur. Seventy-nine years ago today, high in the Allegheny Mountains, minutes were ticking away for the 238 passengers and crew of the Red Arrow, a crack passenger train of the Pennsylvania Railroad. When the clock ran out, a mystery that still confounds us to this day was found amongst the twisted steel and mangled bodies of the Red Arrow. 

Howard Brick Works (Centre County)

    It's remarkable how something so unassuming like an old worn brick could tell such a fascinating story. Many of these bricks show a great deal of character, much like the community that is stamped upon them.