Cutting the Route 22 Bypass

Did you know? The stretch of Route 22 that runs past Huntingdon today was built in the late 1940s.

Federal bridge records date its bridges to 1948 and 1949: the bridge over Crooked Creek at Smithfield to 1948, and the bridge over Penn Street, the railroad and the Juniata River to 1949. A state highway history says construction began in 1949 on the new line from Route 26 to Penn Street south of Huntingdon, and the Huntingdon Daily News has its own negatives of the bypass being built, from about 1947.

Myer Souders sent us this photograph of the cut. He tells us it looks west toward Smithfield and Huntingdon, that the bypass went from start to finish between 1947 and 1949, and that the old highway ran on the south side of the railroad, next to the river, until it reached the farm by Numer's Hollow. And look at that house below the cut, just sitting there watching it all happen.

Checked 2026-10-09 · County histories and primary sources, read in full

← All stories from Smithfield township

Have something to add to this story, or a photograph of it? Send it here →