Franklin township

The Altoona men who built a clubhouse over Spruce Creek

South of Route 45 in Franklin Township, on a hillock above Spruce Creek, a stone clubhouse and three stone outbuildings sit on the ten acres the Spruce Creek Rod and Gun Club bought soon after it formed. The club was formed in 1904 by Altoona businessmen who wanted a ten year lease on exclusive fishing rights over several farms along the choicest part of the creek. The first meeting, under J.G. Davis, was held at the Logan House in Altoona. The charter gave the club's purpose as the stocking and propagation of trout, and its first act was to build a hatchery beside a spring next to the land it was about to buy. The nomination says the club worked closely with the state fish hatchery at Bellefonte for fingerlings, and that this cooperation brought German brown trout into Spruce Creek. The original roll ran to 112 members, among them Oliver Rothert, W.C. Westfall and J.P. McWilliams, manager of the Logan House.

The clubhouse was designed by the Altoona firm of Schollar and Hersh, whose partners, Frederic James Schollar and Frank A. Hersh, started their practice in 1900 and went on to design Altoona's City Hall in 1925. Built of local field stone and lumber in the Colonial Revival style, it has a two and a half story main section under a gambrel roof, a recessed porch behind a rough stone arch, seven bedrooms on the second floor, and an attic with two large bedrooms holding nineteen beds.

Behind it stand a stone generator building of 1906 to 08, an ice house 23 feet square built one floor above ground and one below, and a two story stone garage and carriage man's house, 16 feet square, built in 1908 to 09 to house a vehicle for trips to the Pennsylvania Railroad at the village of Spruce Creek. A one story shed 16 by 110 feet was attached to it about 1920.

The nomination reached the National Park Service in January 1991 under Criterion C, for architecture and for entertainment and recreation, with a period of significance of 1905 to 1940. It says the club has operated continuously since it began, that both Presidents Eisenhower and Carter came to the clubhouse to fish for trout, and that Mission style furniture is still in use in the rooms. The bedrooms are named for eastern states: Pennsylvania, Delaware, New Jersey.

The Spruce Creek Rod and Gun Club, unlike the South Fork Fishing and Hunting Club in Cambria County, made no major changes to the environment. The club constructed a large clubhouse with necessary outbuildings, and hatcheries to stock the nearby stream. The Altoona businessmen did not have to rely on a manmade dam for recreation, but used a natural flowing stream as the focus of the club's activities.National Register of Historic Places nomination, Spruce Creek Rod and Gun Club (reference 91000228), 91000228, section 8, p5 · character 12,351 of the scanned text

Checked against the record. Checked against the National Register nomination text before publication; 5 claims the nomination did not support were removed or corrected.

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