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Mount Union borough

The Gambrel Roofs on Water Street

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, Historic American Buildings Survey / Historic American Engineering Record. No known copyright restrictions. pa2822.photos.038890p

The federal survey describes them exactly as they still stand: two rows of one and a half story, gambrel roofed houses along east Water Street and Pennsylvania Avenue, built by the General Refractories Company for its workers.

In the early 1950s the company sold them. Across the whole region the brick companies followed the same policy when they got out of the housing business, which was to give the family already living in the house the first chance to buy it. By 1966 the last of those deeds had been recorded and the company town was over.

Nothing further from the county histories. The six histories held here end in 1913 and this story belongs to 1966, so there is no passage in them that bears on it. Rather than attach an unrelated page and let it look like corroboration, this story stands on the sources listed below.

Sources

HABS PA-5974 p.6
HABS PA-5974 pp.6-7
HABS PA-5973 p.35
LOC caption pa2822.photos.038890p

Checked 2026-09-12 · 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

Close View of Vermont Farmhouse-Style Home with Original Porch Roof and Siding, No. 43 Poplar Street. - Town of Kistler, Kistler, Mifflin County, PA

Close View of Vermont Farmhouse-Style Home with Original Porch Roof and Siding, No. 43 Poplar Street. - Town of Kistler, Kistler, Mifflin County, PALibrary of Congress · pa2824.photos.038913p

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