Mill Creek borough, Brady township

35 Tons Of Sand A Day For Bottles

Did you know? Sand for bottles, fruit jars and window glass was quarried out of a ridge near Mill Creek.

The Juniata Sand Company had a quarry in the bottom beds of the Oriskany sandstone, below Mill Creek village. A steam crusher and washer prepared 35 tons of sand a day for shipment to Pittsburgh, Wheeling and Bellaire. The sand was called second class and was used for bottles, fruit jars and certain grades of window glass.

The sand rock is 125 feet thick, but only the lowest 30 feet was being used, the purest and softest beds. A little stream breaking through the ridge supplied plenty of water for washing the sand and carrying it down a small flume to the railroad.

Checked and confirmed. CONFIRMED 2026-10-03 against the sources listed: every factual sentence was tied to a verbatim passage and a script confirmed each passage is in its source. Where sources disagreed on a number, the number was left out.

Sources

I. C. White, The Geology of Huntingdon County (Second Geological Survey of Pennsylvania, Report T3, 1885)

Checked 2026-10-03 · County histories and primary sources, read in full

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Photographs from Mill Creek borough

Mill Creek United Methodist Church, Mill Creek, Huntingdon County. The date stone reads MEC 1852.Smallbones, via Wikimedia Commons. Creative Commons Zero (CC0), a public domain dedication · CC0

Looking south along U.S. Route 22 north-east of Mapleton, in far southern Brady township, Huntingdon County, with Jacks Mountain behindPhotograph by the Wikimedia Commons contributor Nyttend, 17 April 2015. Public domain · Southern Brady Township.jpg

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