Huntingdon borough

The Mill That Would Not Move

Huntingdon in 1913, a panorama by Frank Edwards.Frank Edwards, photographer. Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division, Panoramic Photographs, PAN US GEOG - Pennsylvania no. 23 (E size) Public domain

On South Eighth Street, in the Portstown section of Huntingdon, a four-story brick flour mill went up in 1879 for Henry and Company. A 1991 federal survey of the county's industrial sites called it Huntingdon's largest and most modern flour mill when it was built, with eight run of stones and an 80-horsepower steam engine.

Kermit Laney rented the mill in 1930 and ran it successfully until 1935, when fire gutted the building and destroyed his entire inventory. He bought the burned-out building and started over in the first two stories and the basement. The four-story mill came out of the fire two stories tall, with a flat roof.

Before he could reopen, the St. Patrick's Day flood of 1936 wiped him out again. He rebuilt again.

Then came Agnes. The flood of 1972 seriously damaged the Portstown section, Laney's included. Afterward a federal redevelopment project cleared every structure between the railroad and the river except the Laney buildings. Laney would not move.

That refusal, the survey concluded, is why the old industrial buildings he occupied were preserved. Fifty-two years after the 1936 flood, he was still in business on the same spot. Behind the mill stood an old warehouse of Lloyd and Henry, part of the same group of buildings.

Checked and confirmed. Confirmed 2026-10-31 against the sources listed: every factual sentence was tied to a word-for-word passage in its source. Where sources disagreed on a number, the number was left out.

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