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Mount Union borough

Saints Peter and Paul, Built by the Men Who Came for the Brick

General View of Church Looking South. Building Constructed by East European Immigrants Om 1915-16. - Saints Peter & Paul Orthodox Church — General View of Church Looking South. Building Constructed by East European Immigrants Om 1915-16. - Saints Peter & Paul Orthodox ChurchLibrary of Congress, Historic American Buildings Survey / Historic American Engineering Record. No known copyright restrictions. pa2846.photos.038940p

The demand for steel in the First World War pushed silica brick production to a level the county could not staff. Employment at Huntingdon County refractories hit an all time high of 1,800 in 1919, and more than 1,600 of those jobs were in Mount Union alone. Local people could not fill them, so the companies hired eastern and southern European workers, and the town filled up with families who had been somewhere else a year before. By 1910 the Ganister Hill section already held Italian, Austro-Hungarian, Serbian, Croatian, Russian and Macedonian households.

They built this. The federal survey records the church at North Jefferson and Sherman streets as constructed by East European immigrants in 1915 and 1916.

Sources

LOC caption pa2846.photos.038940p (HABS PA-5987)
Shedd 1991, Historical Overview, p.20
HABS PA-5974 p.6

Checked 2026-08-24 · Historic Mount Union collection

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Photographs from Mount Union borough

A ferry on the Juniata near Mount Union, as Myer Souders describes it

A ferry on the Juniata near Mount Union, as Myer Souders describes itShared by Myer Souders

Perspective View of House Looking North. Gable End Not Visible in Photograph Was the Canal Side. - John Sharrar House, West Water Street near Division Street

Perspective View of House Looking North. Gable End Not Visible in Photograph Was the Canal Side. - John Sharrar House, West Water Street near Division StreetLibrary of Congress · pa2853.photos.038950p

$View of Office Looking South. - General Refractories Company, Office, Market Street, Mount Union$ View of Office Looking South. - General Refractories Company, Office, Market Street, Mount UnionLibrary of Congress · pa2851.photos.038947p

“The New P. R. R. Station”, as Charles Welch's history of Mount Union captioned it in 1909.

“The New P. R. R. Station”, as Charles Welch's history of Mount Union captioned it in 1909.Welch, History of Mount Union, 1909 · stg08

$General Interior View of Packing Shed, No. 1 Works - Harbison-Walker Refractories Company, Packing Shed$ General Interior View of Packing Shed, No. 1 Works - Harbison-Walker Refractories Company, Packing ShedLibrary of Congress · pa2727.photos.134465p

View of Grefco Houses Looking South Along Water Street - Town of Mount Union

View of Grefco Houses Looking South Along Water Street - Town of Mount UnionLibrary of Congress · pa2822.photos.038890p

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