Friday, May 27, 2011

Guest Blog: ForgottenPA-Concrete City, Pennsylvania


All the way back in 2007, when ForgottenPA was just a little personal
blog about my group's visit to Centralia, we caught wind of a ghost
town with actual empty houses still in it. Not only were there
buildings, but they were made of concrete! We couldn't get there fast
enough.

That ghost town, of course, was Concrete City, in Nanticoke.
Construction began in 1911 and was  completed in 1913 by the coal
division of the Delaware, Lackawanna and Western Railroad Company to
provide homes for colliery workers. The two-story double homes were
literally made of poured concrete, efficiently using the same floor
plan for both the first and second floors – the second floors all had
staircases that ran into the ceilings, without providing any access to
the roof.

Rented out for $8 a month, the houses served as homes for some of the
company's top staff, but problems cropped up. Paint blistered and
peeled. Water condensed on the inside walls, in spite of using
moisture-repellent construction materials and plaster. One former
resident even said that, in winter, her father's shirts would freeze,
and her mother had to iron them before he could even put them on.

Above all, the houses lacked indoor plumbing, and when it became
standard for residential housing, the company was not interested in
making the improvements. Concrete city was abandoned in 1924, only
eleven years after its construction. Attempts to demolish the town
were also unsuccessful – it was said that a hundred sticks of dynamite
did little to bring down one of the houses.

The trip to Concrete City was a turning point for us – obviously we
weren't poking around the houses in Centralia, but here, we had the
freedom to enter the buildings, to see what time and Mother Nature can
do to man-made structures, to really explore. After being so excited
to get to Concrete City, we felt a real dread, standing at the gaping
black entryway of the first house: What was in there? Would we make it
out alive? When we came out, would we ever be the same?

Of course there was interesting and unique things to see in all the
buildings; clearly, we survived; but we never were the same after our
visit to Concrete City. More than ever, we wanted to explore, to
learn, to see what other wonderful secrets Pennsylvania had been
keeping tucked out of the way. And even though the necessities of work
and life may keep us busy, like the houses at that old ghost town, our
love of exploration will survive anything.
Written by Steve Skipp c/o ForgottenPA

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Tuesday, May 24, 2011

Guest Blog: B.B.Bellezza Green Jewelry-Speedwell Forge Wolf Sanctuary



I had originally heard about the wolf sanctuary because I had friends who used to live there years ago before the buildings were transformed into a bed and breakfast. I had visions of a fence around a yard where a bunch of wolves basically hung out in a grassy yard and howled whenever the moon came out.
I’ve wanted to take a tour of the wolf sanctuary for some time now, so when the director of the sanctuary asked me to be part of Music and Art With the Wolves, I jumped at the chance.
Boy, was I wrong about the wolves, too.
First of all, it’s not a grassy lawn, the wolf sanctuary is on 22 acres of wooded land. Yes, there are fences, but not at all like what I was envisioning.
I was right about the howling. We arrived to set up for the show and got a chorus of howling or as the volunteers call it, “singing.” Surprisingly, it sounds basically like you would imagine from television or the movies. It’s so much more beautiful in person though.
In addition to rescuing and rehabbing wolves, the sanctuary is an educational tool. They strive to teach people that wolves are beautiful creatures, but they are most definitely not pets. I see why people might think of them for a pet, they are gorgeous and they seem like dogs. We have to remember these are wild animals, though, and they will follow their natural instincts. Many of the wolves are there because people originally thought they would make good pets and found out they are not.
The Sanctuary currently provides food, shelter and veterinary care for over forty Wolves with no government or corporate assistance. They survive on fund raising events like the one I attended, people adopting wolves, generous donations, funds raised from giving tours and gift shop sales.
It is always a little sad for me to see wild animals behind a fence or in a cage and not free. It does make me feel better to know that these particular animals are in captivity because they were rescued and being rehabbed. They would not survive in the wild. It is difficult to release an animal once it has been in captivity, so they will live out the rest of their lives at the sanctuary. They didn’t seem to mind, though, since they have so much space.
The art and music show itself was what I would consider an almost perfect day: great music, good food, wonderful art, interesting people, tucked away in the woods and for a great cause. I highly recommend that you check it out next year. In the meantime, the wolf sanctuary has tours on weekdays and weekends and provides full moon tours, which I intend to check out as well.
Shop her online store for handcrafted green jewelry

Sunday, May 22, 2011

Skull Tree: R.I.P.

(Photo from Weird U.S.)

Pennsylvania is a state known mostly for it's abundance of natural resources. Oil, coal, natural gas, and most notably timber. They all played an important role in the commonwealth's history.
With all the timber and trees spread throughout the state, it's only natural a few would sprout urban legends of their own.

One of the most famous trees in the keystone state is the skull tree. Located in a remote area, near a reputed cult house, the tree became an entity of it's own. It came to be known as the skull tree due to the erosion of ground around the roots, giving the tree a grimly look of a human skull.

The tree eventually became a nuisance to local homeowners. Young thrill seekers would often scour the back road late at night, hoping for a glimpse of the notorious tree. They would all too often leave their mark behind as well, often littering and tagging trees or street signs. The vandals had become such a disturbance that the township has since had the infamous tree removed. Another outta the way gem destroyed by a few irresponsible hoodlums!

Video ride down devil's road, home of skull tree
Skull Tree

Thursday, May 19, 2011

What's a Zine?



What's a zine? This is a question that regularly gets asked when I'm explaining Outta the Way. I usually just answer " it's a mini magazine." But that's such a generic answer, truthfully zines are much more than that. Usually the term is referred to any self published work with a small but devout group of followers. Profit is not the primary intent of zines, it's the spreading of knowledge that is not commonly for the mainstream.

Since the beginning of time people have been looking for ways to share their stories, with the invention of the printing press that dream became a reality for many. Now anybody with radical thinking and a different ideology than the general public could get their word out to hundreds, possibly thousands. Both Thomas Paine and Benjamin Franklin were independent publishers.

The origin of the word zine is unknown, but began to be used widespread during the early 1970's. During this time is when more zines began appearing, particularly in the underground sex and punk club scenes.

During the 1980's zines started gaining more of an artistic appeal. They even spawned their own subculture, zinesters. Zines during the 80's were very perverse and often covered obscure topics. Subjects often deemed too taboo for mainstream society.

However in the 1990's when the internet began to surge, zines then began to slowly disappear. Fortunately these same writers were able to gain a larger audience. This attention helped to turn a few self published writers into established authors.

Today zines are being embraced by a new generation, a generation that doesn't always trust the media and it's opinions. A new breed, who believes we need to be more self sufficient in our own needs. A group that doesn't want their information and mass media spoon fed to them.

Outta the way zines are available in traditional B & W form, and also as a color PDF you can print from home. Each zine consists of several out of the way places to visit. Each place will contain history, photos, and driving directions. Now get outta the way, 'cause we're going Outta the Way!

Find more zines on Etsy!
Learn more about zines and creating your own.

Saturday, May 14, 2011

Gravity Hill in Numidia, Pennsylvania


The name of the town invokes mysticism, magic and mystery. The fact that only roughly 250 people live in this tiny village certainly doesn’t hurt the mystery. That makes the tiny town of Numidia pretty easy to miss.
There are a couple of reasons to visit this sleepy town. In fact if you’re a racing lover, this place will appeal to you even more. One of the biggest attractions Numidia is known for is its drag strip. Thousands of spectators flock every year to the Numidia Dragstrip to watch rocket fueled cars race down the ¼ mile speedway.
Yet there’s another spot in this mountain village that not many know about, but those that do get to test their own cars out on this magical spot. Instead of diving as fast as you can down a straightaway, here you do almost the exact opposite. With little help from you other than a gear shift, you can drive your car backwards up a hill, while in neutral on the rural road known as Gravity Hill. Locals have been challenging each other for years to defy gravity. Placing your car in neutral on the right spot gives the illusion that your car is rolling uphill on its own. There are numerous of these gravity hills located throughout the world. Most claim that there are magnetic pulls or supernatural powers at work. That’s why you’re able to defy gravity. The fact that this gravity hill is quite rural, yet easily found helps it to stand out above some others. It’s also mainly only known to the locals, and is not used to attract tourists, and being in a town called Numidia, well, that’s just pure magic.
Video ride on Gravity Hill

Lost Riverboat in Shartlesville, Pennsylvania

Marooned not too far from the wondrous attraction known as Roadside America lies an old riverboat looking oddly out of place. The dilapidated boat lies detached in an open field, far from the days of entertaining guests off the coast of New York and New Jersey. Originally the riverboat was built in Minnesota and was named the "Suwannee Belle." The riverboat spent slightly more then a decade elating tourists from all over the world. It was eventually decommissioned in 1991. After a failed attempt as a restaurant the "Suwannee Belle" sat in a New Jersey storage unit until 2003. At this point the riverboat was purchased and was finding a new home in rural Shartlesville, Pennsylvania. The original owner had planned to use the riverboat as a tiki bar, unfortunately his dreams never came to fruition. Since then it has sat in this remote field never fully living up to the potential it seemingly had just a few short years ago. The new owners of the nearby restaurant continue to pay homage to the lost riverboat, having named their venture the Riverboat Saloon.

Sunday, May 8, 2011

Whistler's Mother Monument

"A Mother is the holiest thing alive," Samuel Taylor Coleridge wrote. The folks of Ashland, Pennsylvania agree. They have an 8 feet tall bronze statue to prove it. During FDR's presidency, there was a movement by the government to help small towns build an identity for themselves, and Ashland wanted a part of this. In 1937 the Ashland Boys association wanted a way to honor their mothers. They'd get that help from the federal government. After planning and voting, they agreed it should be a bronze statue of James McNeil's famous 1871 painting, "Arrangement in Grey and Black: Portrait of the Painter's Mother," also known as Whistler's Mother. If you've seen the painting with the artist's mother, Anna Matilda McNeil Whistler, her blank, humorless expression doesn't exactly exuberate "mother of the year." Unfortunately for McNeil's mother she never realized how infamous she would become, she died in 1881, before her son ever became famous. I bet she never thought there would be a monument made in her likeness, either.

Needless to say I guess this was the boy's epitome of motherhood. On September 4, 1938, two local mothers- the oldest in the town at the time, 88 and 91 years old- unveiled the eight-foot statue seated on a three ton slab of granite. The monument is recognized as the only one of it's kind in the country. If you're in the mood for a salute to motherhood unlike anything else, this is the monument for you.

Those Ashland boys sure are show-offs, this pales in comparison to the card I got my mother last year. By the way the Boy's Association is still very active in Ashland and every year they host a parade that attracts thousands!
For other nearby Outta the Way spots!

Friday, May 6, 2011

Guest Blog: Ghost Hunting Theories-Abandoned and Paniced

I’d passed this two-story building a dozens of times when I was growing up. My family would pile into the station wagon and drive to the mountains of West Virginia to visit my mother’s family. It was a ritual we did several times every year. The building sat across from our motel and I would skip across the road to buy candy.

Now, however, the building has been abandoned for decades. I have come back to visit my siblings who ended up settling in the hills and the cousins and aunts and uncles and miscellaneous other distant family.

This time, however, I study the building with a frown in the setting sunlight.

Branches and limbs have grown through the concrete out front and a tree is growing inside the front window. I peer through the broken glass to study the shelving units drooping and the Coke machine that had faded in the slant of sunlight that comes through the windows nearby.

I back up and look at the painted brick walls and faded sign, vines growing up it and engulfing the side of the building as if nature is reclaiming the structure.

A car passes by slowly and someone glares at me. I’m used to that. The folks in these hills know an outsider when they see one. I slip around the building to the side, out of sight, and lean through a broken out window to inspect piles of clothing, clothing racks, chairs, a TV turned upside down. The smell is rank and stale, a mixture of mold, pine oils from a nearby tree and musty wet dust.

I cough.

Then, I look around me. I can’t help it. An abandoned building, lots of weird archaeological finds…I love places that have been left as-is and possessions left to age and weather, rot and be claimed by the earth…

I step through the window and tug my jean leg loose from the nail sticking out and stumble right into a mirror propped up against a coat rack. I slip off the slick glass and fall onto a stack of books with an “oomph!” The wind is knocked right out of me.

I laugh.

When I turn my head, I realize that the side door was wide open right beside the window, had I walked a few feet more. No need to bruise my ribs. I dust myself off and tip toe over the piles of miscellaneous items from a hair dryer to a pile of clothing and then stop short in amazement. Someone has left tea cups on saucers and a hot plate near the wall.

I look around and then inspect the rotted box of biscuits nearby and look into the dirty dry cups. Whoever was squatting there was gone for some time.

I can’t help myself; I see the open door into the hall and have to climb through the clothing rack to check it out. I stumble through and find the hall completely empty. I am rather surprised by that find.

I walk the length of it, stopping in the doorways to look into rooms that are equally crammed with random things from tables to dishes, wrappers to bottles and cans. The moldy smell makes me sneeze several times and I study the origins of dripping water. It’s coming from the second story and not a really good sign of what’s upstairs.

The stairwell at the end draws my eyes, but I’m not certain about how stable the building is. I know it’s at least 30 years old, but I’m certain it’s more likely 50. Still, I figure I can test a step or two and see what it offers.

Just as I step onto the first stair, I look over into a huge room filled with junk, but not like the other rooms. This one is lined up as if someone was trying to sort through it or make sense of it.

I’m curious by nature, I have to explore.

So, I walk into the huge warehouse-like room and study the padded ground. Small beds are lined up, made of leftover clothing and some kind of sofa cushions. There are four of them in the room, all along the walls. I squint across the darkening room to see a shape and I gasp and duck back into the hallway, peering cautiously to see if the human figure moves.

It stays much too still to be a person.

I step back into the room and walk between piles of like items; backpacks in one row, fishing poles in another. It appears to me like some kind of crazy Dr. Seuss experiment. Then, my foot falls into a crack in the floor and I yank my sneakered foot from it in pain. My eyes settle on the mannequin figure. Someone has dressed it in a bikini and drawn an exaggerated smile on its face from a tube of lipstick in its hand. I run my fingers over the lipstick. It is hardened and dried on. The broken windows nearby are covered with the vines and the light of the day is almost all gone.

If I stay any longer, I will be there in the dark without light.

When I turn to walk away, something catches my eye. There is a cooler up against the wall. I open it up, afraid of rats or bugs pouring out of it, only to find icy sludge in the bottom of it and a six-pack of beers with one beer missing. I put my hand into the freezing water and a chill runs up my spine. I see a line of melted candles atop of a loose floorboard and a pack of matches.

It’s not the cold doing it.

Someone is staying there and considers this a home of sorts. I have just encroached on what looks like four adult’s home for the night.

When I spin around to leave, the stairs call to me. I wonder what’s up there, but I also wonder why water is dripping down below from above. That could mean a hole in the ceiling, weak floors…

But, I’ve come this far and if the people aren’t back at nighttime, then they are likely at the bar across the street on the riverfront.

Knowing I won’t try it a second time, I go up the stairs cautiously. They are stable and strong. It’s a good sign. I can barely see as I turn the corner up to the second set of stairs and then I see light. Not bright light, but lingering daylight. There is a hole in the ceiling. My eyes rivet to the room and realize that someone has over the years removed walls from the upstairs. A bathtub sits on the floor in the middle of an empty space. I walk over to it and look at the hole in the ceiling at the darkening sky. It appears that rain fills up the tub.

I lean over and watch as a leaf floats across the murky water. There is a bar of soap on the rim of the tub, worn down to a thin sliver.

Someone has been using this rain tub. There are towels across the space draped over the lower half of a half torn-out wall. I wonder at the person who can live in these conditions, especially in a mountain wintertime when it comes around.

Maybe this is just the summer home?

Afraid to test the floorboards, I go back downstairs. When I hit the bottom step, I hear voices. I stop and listen, holding my breath. I can hear them walking alongside the building and their voices coming through the broken windows. The hall is dark now and I creep down to the end of it, debating whether I can go back out the way I came in, which is where the people are, or if I should try to make my getaway through the front of the shop that opens onto the riverfront street.

When I hear shuffling in the “living room,” I realize the people are home for the night and I’m in their territory. I back up into the front room of the store. Outside the moonlight is starting to glow on the rushing river across the street. I hear the sounds from the bar and cars slowing down to pull up for a Saturday night of revelry.

A car pulls into the parking lot of the empty building and the headlights move across me in the large open room. I duck behind the bar counter and my mind races.

Could it be the cops? Some people joining the others?

The space I’m hiding in doesn’t provide much get-away. If someone entered through the broken windows of the store, they would walk right past me and if they looked down—there I’d be.

I will myself to become invisible.

Then, I hear the thumping bass of a radio in the car out front. It sounds like teens laughing and talking but the car is idling, the lights making the room so bright that if I try to leave, I will definitely be seen, not to mention this is my only way out at this point unless I want to disturb the squatters.

Minutes tick by, the radio booming, the voices rising up. Someone at the end of the hall doesn’t like it. He yells loudly and I realize at any time he could hike down the hallway to the front of the store and right past me. I tuck myself in against the wall, praying that with the lack of light I will become invisible. My fingers touch the counter and I realize I can scoot it slightly, able to drag it enough to remain hidden.

The occupant rushes the hallway, screaming like a maniac in a hillbilly dialect that I am not at all acquainted with; and I have heard them all. For a delirious minute, I want to giggle at how stupid this whole idea was and how I manage to get myself into these situations and how his voice sounds like some freaky rural Scottish dialect and not English.

He pounds the frame of the broken display window at the storefront and the horn on the car sounds a bunch of times. Laughter rises up and the car pulls out of the gravel driveway and takes off, leaving me completely in the dark with this angry redneck who is also territorial.

I force my mind away from “The Hills Have Eyes” and “Wrong Turn,” but I shiver anyways. One thing I know about panic is that once you let in a forbidden thought, it becomes a focus and obsession. Now, I can’t stop thinking of whether I’m going to end up in pieces packed into the cooler with the melting ice at the end of the night.

He hasn’t left the front room and I’m trying desperately to not sneeze, not cough, not make a sound of breathing. My knees are shaking wildly because I’m down on the balls of my feet and crouched, but if I try to resettle, he will hear me in the stillness, even with the country-western music playing in the bar across the street, the room is eerily still.

He paces the room and grumbles to himself and then I hear him pick up something and throw it, crashing the last bit of glass in the window.

When he races past me to the back of the building, I wait a time. I know that if I go soon, he will rush out thinking it was the teens again. I also know that without their radio blaring, he will hear me shuffle the bar aside to get out of my crouching spot.

It’s come to my realization that if I just shove it back and run, I only have 20 feet to go before I’m outside. I doubt the hillbilly with the weird dialect is going to chase me down into the bar across the way.

My desire to flee is stronger than my commonsense and I shove at the bar only to find there is something obstructing it and I have pushed it past that obstruction, causing it to fall forward. My arms flail to grab it back, but it collapses like a mighty earthquake with a dust cloud.

Now, I’m sprinting to the windows and the tiny light I see outside the door of the bar across the way. The redneck is in the hall and pounding the walls with something metallic.

As I vault out the window and into the gravel driveway, I realize my car is down the street at the Dairy Queen where I left it when I went for my stupid walk.

Breathlessly I pump my legs, not looking back, sprinting into the street and past the taxidermy shop with the creepy stuffed bear on its porch, past the smelly bait and tackle shop and then I realize two things:

There are no streetlights or cars and there is someone in the gravel chasing me still!

I fumble through my pocket as I gasp for air and pull out my keys and rush to click them into the door lock and get inside. The rental car is unfamiliar. I laugh hysterically out of fright at my ridiculous redneck chase scene and turn on the car, flicking on the lights and seeing him about 50 feet away with the iron bar in his hand. It looks like a towel rack. He's swaying and swinging it over his head as he hollers.

I feel safe now and secure, but still I wonder if he’ll come at the car with the weapon, so I turn and go the other direction back to the hotel.

NOTE: I still go into abandoned places, but now I make sure there aren’t squatters first. I start out by making plenty of warning sounds for them to come greet me outside instead of in. I look for signs of habitation that are current. I listen carefully for anyone approaching. And, I always bring someone as a guard and lookout.

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Wednesday, May 4, 2011

Guest Blog: SWPA Rural Exploration-Fayette County, Pennsylvania

Visiting Fayette county, PA, the Fredericktown Ferry and eating a hoagie at Stan-Lee's in Crucible, PA.

Today, Chip and I left out early and headed to Fayette County. Our original plan was to take the Fredericktown Ferry,

but that was quickly snuffed as it was closed for some reason, so we headed on down 88 to go the long way over the Mon at Brownsville. Brownsville, a once thriving river community, predicted to be at one time larger then Pittsburgh, has fallen into tough times.

The good old days......

.....and now. Same view, different century.

In the truck on the way to Brownsville, Chip and I talked of how this would just be a day of exploration or scouting future places to visit. Either Chip or I had really spent anytime walking around Brownsville so we decided that theres no better time then a snowy, 12 degree winter day, so we parked and looked.


As it was cold, we stopped in the local landmark Fiddles Confectionery for some coffee and conversation.





The ladies behind the counter talked and talked about the "old" Brownsville and the "new" much less improved Brownsville. They spoke of how they have just finished filming a movie in Brownsville, and used Fiddles for a lot of location work. One of my favorites filmed locally was Maria's Lovers, a small film most are unaware of, staring Natassja Kinski (she is beautiful in this movie), John Savage and Robert Mitchum. Brownsville was dressed up nicely for this film.


"Maria's House"

Another cool place they used for this movies filming was High Point bar, just up the hill overlooking California PA. In the film, the bar had a certain old charm to it, sort of like Fiddles place, but right after they made the movie, they extensively remodeled it....I guess a dump truck load of cash for movie making makes you forget your history. Its still an OK place, made even better by the spectacular view of the Mons horse shoe bend at Newell

Back into the truck we went and set off on a mission to take a photograph of Rices Landing PA from the Fayette side for Chips dad. There was a house across the river, and not much else. We would find it. Oh, along the way and during the day we filmed a few videos, now mind you, they are mostly rambling efforts, but there is some good scenery included in them. Pardon the sometimes shaky nature of the camera as it was quite cold and I need to find a rig w/ image stabilization. The video below begins w/ The Fredericktown Ferry, the last operating ferry on the Monongahela river, and quite possibly further. I have recently secured a vast quantity of pictures of the ferries past, and soon as I get more, there will be a entire post devoted to this subject.
Video Click Here!
.....So, I could just type forever about the long, good day, but I won't seeing as it's Christmas eve day, but to sum it up, we found the house, met the owner Dave Watters who merits a trip back in non 12 degree weather where he stood outside and talked history w/ he and his wife for 40 minutes (he worked w/ Chips grandad, small world) took the picture from Daves gas well..........
(Chip here.I spent my entire life looking across the river at this one house on top of the hill and swore one day I would visit it.We found it! Evan and I discovered its not only the places you visit but the people you meet that make this project fun.The best history lessons are from the folks that live there everyday!)

We got directions to the old Crucible ferry, Fayette side, and after a few wrong turns, landed on its ramp.

A short time later, we were rolling back to Greene, hungry and cold, but chip needed to make a special request stop....


Chipper at one time fancied himself a "skater" and he showed me the "full pipe" he and his "crew" used to skate on in the mid 80's. Its a big concrete tube that just sits (and has sat) behind the Shop-N-Save in Masontown Pa. Graffiti he and his buds did 25 years ago still shows thru. Back into the truck, over to the former Crucible mine site.


Crucible shut down operations in I believe 1961 and there it stood deserted and abandoned up until 2006.


You can see its current state in the video here.....

Hungry, we decided to wrap it up for the day and get a hoagie, so we headed up the steep hill to Crucible to the former Crucible company store.....Stan-Lee's


For a better look inside Stan-Lee's check out this video....again, we ramble a bit, but its all so clever...
Thats my friend, Holly in the video, the new owner of Stan-Lee's. We rode bus 4 together, Mrs. Kings bus. She makes one heck of an italian hoagie as well. Stop by, grab one.

Even if we really didn't do any heavy duty exploring, we had fun, met some good people and it was a great day altogether, and we found a lot of "return to" spots....


Thanks to our friends at SWPA Rural exploration for sharing!Here's where to find them.
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Monday, May 2, 2011

Twin Covered Bridges


If you're looking for one of the most unique covered bridges in the world, you can find it in the county of Columbia in Pennsylvania.

The county boasts 23 covered bridges, the third most of any county in Pennsylvania, which has more than any other state. However none of the bridges are as exquisite as the East and West Paden covered bridges. These two unmatched bridges were built in 1850 by W.C. Pennington. Both of these magnificent marvels are the Burr-Arch design, a very popular design used on numerous covered bridges in Pennsylvania. The twin bridges were named for a local sawmill operator named John Paden. The two bridges cross over the Huntington creek. The smaller East Paden bridge, measures only 79 feet long, while the larger West Paden bridge measures 103 feet long. Both bridges were built for a paltry $720.00. The bridges were used for transportation purposes for a little over a century.

In 1962 the county began preservation efforts after the bridges began to weather away. By 1963, they were left open only for foot traffic.

The original bridges were restored and left intact until 45 years later when in 2006 a torrential flood washed away the original West Paden covered bridge. The county struck back as hard as the storm that washed away their history. In 2008 the West Paden bridge was finished and re-opened. Thanks to the hard work of the county these engineering marvels are still standing for all to enjoy. The twin bridges are now a part of a county park and have the distinction of being the only twin covered bridges in the United States.

The park is quite peaceful and serene, allowing you to emancipate yourself in all the surrounding beauty, both natural and man made!

Zine featuring Twin Bridges and other local Outta the Way spots.
Video of Twin Bridges

Sunday, May 1, 2011

National Sharing Month

May is National sharing Month, we here at Outta the Way are celebrating by allowing you to guest blog for us. If you have an intriguing or weird place you have visited and care to share, let us know and you may be featured as a guest blogger. If interested you may contact us by e-mail at Outtaway@hotmail.com
All who contribute will receive a free color PDF zine!