THE SUSQUEHANNA TRAIL
River front of Lock Haven
The installation of modern street lighting systems with underground wires. And the gradual improvements in store fronts and business places.
It calls for the establishment of drives, playgrounds, and parks; the acquiring of a woodland reservation, adjoining Highland Cemetery, at the edge of the town, for a public park; and purchase of an outlying mountain top for future recreation. Much of the plan has been carried out. A unique and beautiful parkway has been made by utilizing the abandoned basin of the old canal, which cut through the heart of Lock Haven; it had become a dump heap, but under the Nolen plan was filled, and has blossomed into one of the show places of the city, with flower beds, lawn, trees, and special landscape garden effect at each end. The river front has been made into a park, at entrance to the bridge, over the Susquehanna, a modern structure built by the state, which replaced a picturesque, covered bridge built, 1855, about 800 feet long; it includes the old toll house, pronounced by Mr. Nolen a valuable asset for the city. A smaller, quaint, old covered wood bridge, same period, about four miles from Lock Haven, spans Bald Eagle stream, on Bald Eagle Valley Road; near is the Clinton “Country Club” house, artistically built of cobblestones, architect, Lester Kintzing, New York.
The Courthouse, red brick and brownstone, surmounted by two dome-shaped towers, built in 1869, on site of an earlier one built, 1842, is on Water Street facing the river. On the river front is a stone marker, inscription, “Located in the stockade of Fort Reed, built, 1775, for defense against the Indians.” On the river road, leading to Williamsport, near McElhattan, is site of Fort Horn, stone marker, both placed by the Hugh White Chapter, D. A. R., to mark the last two, of the trail of stockade fortifications, built along the river in defense of the pioneer settlers. Where Lock Haven stands was original site of several Indian villages; burial places; and marked one of their great thoroughfares from the north to the coast. Granite monument to 1938 soldiers of Clinton County in the Civil War is in center of city.
St. Paul’s Protestant Episcopal Church, stone, Gothic, with spire, built, 1852, on Main Street, has memorial windows by Tiffany and Lamb, New York, and chancel window from England. The Immaculate Conception, Roman Catholic Church, built, 1905, and rectory, 1915, Gothic, with two towers, Hummelstone brownstone, architect, J. A. Dempwolf, York, Pa., corner of Water and Third Streets, is on site of an earlier church, built in 1857, dedicated by Rev. John C. Gilligan, pioneer missionary. Central State Normal School, on ground given by Philip Price of Philadelphia, founded, 1871, includes twelve buildings, on thirty-two acres of land, commanding extended view; the main building was erected in 1890, architect, A. S. Wagner, Williamsport; art course includes the theory and practice of teaching art; industrial art and lectures on art history; reproductions of paintings, and European architecture, also replicas of sculpture, are placed about the buildings.
Ross Memorial Free Library, on Main Street, opened, 1910, further endowed by the late Wilson Kistler, sends traveling libraries to rural schools; contains painting by E. H. Shearer, “Ole Bull’s Castle in Potter Co.”; a noteworthy collection of North American Indian relics, 10,000 pieces, owned by Dr. T. B. Stewart, has been offered as a loan to this library, the collection is especially rich in local relics of domestic life and implements of war. “The Fallon House,” built in 1855, still in excellent condition, is said to have been built with funds of Queen Isabella II, of Spain, who invested largely of her private fortune in Pennsylvania, for a retreat in case of revolution. In Highland Cemetery is an exact reproduction of the St. Martin’s Cross, 16 feet 8 inches high, on the Island of Iona, off the coast of Scotland, erected in 1914, in memory of Samuel Richard Peale.
