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Porter township

The Diamond Valley Railroad

Diamond Valley Railroad cars and a group of men
Diamond Valley Railroad cars and a group of menShared by Myer Souders

Did you know? Huntingdon County once had a railroad called the Diamond Valley Railroad, built by a lumberman, and for a time its bridge was how people on foot got across the Juniata at Barree.

David Gring, who sold many millions of feet of lumber, built it to develop a tract of 20,000 acres in Huntingdon County, his obituary says: some fifteen miles of railroad, bridging the Juniata and joining the main line of the Pennsylvania Railroad at Barree. In June 1890 a Bellefonte paper reported a man killed while helping to shift cars on the Diamond Valley railroad. And after the June flood of 1889 swept away the county bridge at Barree, people on foot were obliged to use the Diamond Valley railroad bridge, the Huntingdon Globe reported in 1892.

Myer Souders shared this photograph of the line's cars, lettered DIAMOND VALLEY R.R., with a group of men lined up beside them.

Checked and confirmed. CONFIRMED 2026-10-09 against the sources listed: every factual sentence was tied to a verbatim passage and a script confirmed each passage is in its source. Information shared with us by readers is given as theirs, not as fact: Myer Souders.

Sources

  1. Obituary of David Gring, as transcribed on Find a Grave (memorial 25404980)
  2. Bellefonte Republican, 12 June 1890, p. 3
  3. Juniata Sentinel and Republican, 17 February 1892, p. 2, quoting the Huntingdon Globe

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

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Photographs from Porter township

The remains of the Barree Furnace stack, the work arch at the centre, photographed for the National Park Service survey of the county's industrial sites in 1991.The remains of the Barree Furnace stack, the work arch at the centre, photographed for the National Park Service survey of the county's industrial sites in 1991.Nancy S. Shedd et al., Huntingdon County, Pennsylvania: An Inventory of Historic Engineering and Industrial Sites ( , National Park Service, 1991), photograph 4 · stg06
Pulpit Rocks, Warrior Ridge, Huntingdon CoPulpit Rocks, Warrior Ridge, Huntingdon CoLibrary of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division. No known restrictions on publication · 2015650273
The two-family workers’ house at the Juniata Iron Works.The two-family workers’ house at the Juniata Iron Works.Nancy S. Shedd et al., Huntingdon County, Pennsylvania: An Inventory of Historic Engineering and Industrial Sites ( , National Park Service, 1991), photograph 16 · shd016
Water going over the spillway at Warrior Ridge, with the Ambursen dam and the power plant to the right.Water going over the spillway at Warrior Ridge, with the Ambursen dam and the power plant to the right.Nancy S. Shedd et al., Huntingdon County, Pennsylvania: An Inventory of Historic Engineering and Industrial Sites ( , National Park Service, 1991), photograph 111, photograph by Jet Lowe · shd111
the Porter Township, Huntingdon County, Pennsylvania municipal building. Photo taken from Pennsylvania Route 305 (Bridge Street) looking east-southeast.the Porter Township, Huntingdon County, Pennsylvania municipal building. Photo taken from Pennsylvania Route 305 (Bridge Street) looking east-southeast.Photograph by Mr. Matté, 2024-08-20. Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0; reused with credit, and the same licence travels with any derivative · Porter Twp., Huntingdon Co., PA municipal building, Aug. 2024.jpg

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