Huntingdon County Information Page

Juniata township

The Distiller Who Lost His License

Did you know? In 1888 a Huntingdon whiskey dealer was refused a renewal of his license, and in 1891 he got it back because the authorities found they could not keep liquor out of the county anyway.

Richard Langdon built a brick distillery in Juniata Township, near Huntingdon, and Martin Grube ran it. His son, Martin Grube Jr., carried on the business from January 2, 1884, until May 1, 1888, when he was refused a renewal of his license. A county biography published in 1897 says that three years later, finding it impossible to prevent the importation of liquors into the county, the authorities granted Mr. Grube a license again on April 1, 1891.

A fire insurance map shared by Myer Souders shows Martin Grube Jr.'s registered distillery on Raystown Road.

Checked and confirmed. CONFIRMED 2026-10-03 against the sources listed: every factual sentence was tied to a verbatim passage and a script confirmed each passage is in its source. Where sources disagreed on a number, the number was left out. Information shared with us by readers is given as theirs, not as fact: Myer Souders (map).

Sources

  1. J. Simpson Africa, History of Huntingdon and Blair Counties, Pennsylvania (1883)
  2. Commemorative Biographical Encyclopedia of the Juniata Valley (1897)

Checked 2026-10-03 · County histories and primary sources, read in full

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