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Wood township

Robertsdale as it was being built, August 1874

From the newspaper the county was reading at the time, on Wood township. Wood is the youngest township in the county, erected from Carbon in March 1905, so no newspaper of the 1870s could mention it by name. What the papers do describe is the place: Robertsdale, the Rockhill Iron and Coal Company's town, which the federal industrial survey dates to 1874 and which lies in what is now Wood township. This account of it being built appeared in the Huntingdon Journal on 12 August 1874, at the end of a description of the new railroad up Trough Creek Valley. It is printed exactly as the page reads, including the spelling of the day and the errors the scanner made.

Leaving Cook's Mills we finally arrive at the terminus, Robertsdale. At this place the company have laid out a town and already some thirty or forty dwellings have been erected. Here also is the centre of the East Broad Top coal lands. The company are run ning four mines at this place night and day. The company, we learn, have run a prelimi nary line from Robertsdale to Broad Top City, with a view of extending their railroad to that place.Huntingdon Journal, 12 August 1874, p. 3 · character 0 of the scanned text

Sources

  1. Huntingdon Journal, 12 August 1874, p. 3, on the new railroad up Trough Creek Valley and its terminus at Robertsdale
  2. Nancy Shedd, Huntingdon County Historic Engineering and Industrial Sites Inventory (1991): "Rockhill Iron & Coal Company: Company town of Robertsdale, On SR 913, Wood Twp. Construction date: 1874." Cited to place Robertsdale in Wood township and to confirm the date; still in copyright, so not quoted at length here.

Checked 2026-09-01 · Mined from the Pennsylvania Newspaper Archive

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Photographs from Wood township

Reality Theater, South Main Street opposite Route 913, RobertsdaleReality Theater, South Main Street opposite Route 913, RobertsdaleLibrary of Congress · pa2068
Rockhill Iron & Coal Company Office, Main Street, RobertsdaleRockhill Iron & Coal Company Office, Main Street, RobertsdaleLibrary of Congress · pa2066
Rockhill Iron & Coal Company Store, 68 North Main Street, RobertsdaleRockhill Iron & Coal Company Store, 68 North Main Street, RobertsdaleLibrary of Congress · pa2065
Superintendent's House, 9 Church Street, RobertsdaleSuperintendent's House, 9 Church Street, RobertsdaleLibrary of Congress · pa2061
St. Michael's Greek Orthodox Church, High Street, WoodvaleSt. Michael's Greek Orthodox Church, High Street, WoodvaleLibrary of Congress · pa2085
Robertsdale Hotel, 14 South Main Street, RobertsdaleRobertsdale Hotel, 14 South Main Street, RobertsdaleLibrary of Congress · pa2074

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