This story first appeared in PA Local, a weekly newsletter by Spotlight PA taking a fresh, positive look at the incredible people, beautiful places, and delicious food of Pennsylvania. An army of contractors has spent the past several years quietly fanning out across Pennsylvania to find the history state records have missed. The deployment, the first of its kind here since the 1980s, quickly produced leads.
In year one, more than 7,500 properties in 17 rural counties were added to Pennsylvania’s Historic Places Inventory, which is exactly what it sounds like. By the time the multiyear, 55-county architectural survey ended this June, more than 20,000 properties had been logged, along with 727 potential archaeological sites. The findings include Black churches and Croatian clubs in coal country; Chinese laundries; vintage ice cream stands; a stone altar on a Snyder County mountain; Northern Tier drive-ins; American Legion outposts galore; pyramids in Bucks County; the Liberty Theater in Nanty Glo, Cambria County; and mid-20th century homes in Upper Chichester, Delaware County.
If you browse the series of blog posts detailing the discoveries, you might find yourself thinking, “A lot of these historic places don’t look very old.” The stone altar in Snyder County was only built in 1974, for instance. But that falls right around the 50-year threshold for what experts will generally consider historic, explains Andrea MacDonald, director of the State Historic Preservation Of.