Mill Creek, from Goslin Run to borough

Before it was Mill Creek, the stream had other names. J. Simpson Africa's 1883 county history says the early residents called it Goslin Run. Mordecai Gosnell began an improvement on the tract that included the creek's mouth in the spring of 1766, Africa writes, and was living there on June 20 of that year, when the official survey was made. Africa adds that the family name is often incorrectly pronounced Goslin. After Joseph Pridmore built his grist mill, the main stream was known as Pridmore's Mill Creek, and when Caleb Armitage became proprietor the name changed to Armitage's Mill Creek.

The village was laid out on October 12, 1848, by James Simpson for David Zook & Co., Africa says, on part of a larger tract surveyed in June 1786 on a warrant granted to Joseph Pridmore that March. The original plot took in ten lots, sixty-six by one hundred and fifty-four feet, on the north side of the turnpike from Huntingdon to Lewistown. Additional lots were sold next to these and across the turnpike. Milton Scott Lytle's 1876 county history gives the same date, calls Mill Creek the principal village of Brady Township and names the proprietors as Messrs. Zook, Plank and King. Africa gives the village 288 inhabitants in his 1883 book.

The county's 1937 Sesqui-Centennial book says Simpson laid out the town as a station of the Pennsylvania Railroad. Africa places Mill Creek Station about five miles below Huntingdon, while John W. Jordan's 1913 history of the Juniata Valley and the 1937 book both say six miles east. Africa calls the depot building spacious and well arranged, with telegraph and telephone privileges, and names A. M. Menold as the agent, with A. P. Burnham in the post for more than ten years before him. A biographical encyclopedia of the Juniata Valley published in 1897 says Burnham was made agent at Mill Creek in the spring of 1867, and describes Albert M. Menold as passenger and freight agent there. Its sketches also point to a family tie: Burnham's sister Sarah married William Menold of Mercer County, and Albert was the only child of William B. and Sarah (Burnham) Menold.

Africa says David Snively kept one of the first stores in the locality at Wilson's Mills, as early as 1828. Soon after, Milliken & Thompson sold goods in part of the Old Red House, then put up a building at what was by Africa's day the center of the village, and were in it before the canal was finished. By 1883 that lot held the store of B. R. Foust & Son, in trade at that stand since July 1877. In the upper part of the village, a co-operative store opened in January 1881.

Two later histories give December 13, 1905 as the day Mill Creek became a borough. Jordan's history says it was incorporated that day with I. N. Foust as chief burgess, and the 1937 book says the town obtained borough privileges on that date.

Checked 2026-11-01 · Primary sources and the Pennsylvania Newspaper Archive

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