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Portage - BUSINESSES
Portage - RESOURCES
Portage - CHURCHES
Portage - SCHOOLS

Portage

The town of Portage began in 1829 when a school was built there for children from the surrounding farms. When developers learned that the Allegheny Portage Railroad was to be built through the area, they began building a town.

The Portage Railroad was the outcome of a desire to make commercial transport available between Philadelphia and Pittsburgh. The Pennsylvania Canal was built to make barge transport available between the two cities, but the engineers realised that it was not economical, and probably not even feasible, to construct canals across the Allegheny Mountains. To solve the problem, they decided to construct a railroad (one of the first in the U.S.) to span the thirty or so miles from Hollidaysburg in Blair County to Johnstown in Cambria County. The town of Portage grew up along that route.

So at first the town served the supply needs of local farmers, then the needs of those building the Allegheny Portage Railroad, and later the travellers who crossed the mountains on that railroad. In 1837 the Washington House Hotel was built to accommodate travelers on the railroad.

By the 1850s the Pennsylvania Railroad built an alternate Portage Railway that went around the Allegheny Mountain rather than over it -- a longer but more level route. Since the trains on this new route were fueled by burning wood, Portage soon became a center for firewood production. By 1854 the Pennsylvania Railroad completed the Horseshoe Curve and Gallitzin Tunnels, making it possible to transport goods entirely by rail, and the old canal system and its associated portage rail route fell out of use.

In the 1870s the first coal mines were opened in the Portage area, and soon the town became a center for supplying the needs of coal mining companies and their workers. In 1878 Portage Township was formed out of parts of Summerhill and Washington Townships. In 1890 the Borough of Portage was incorporated.

Today, visitors to Portage find the Portage Station Museum, a train depot used by the Pennsylvania Railroad from 1926 to 1954 and now a history museum. There is also Crichton McCormick Park, site of an annual Kids Fishing Derby where children compete to catch the hundreds of trout released for the occassion. The park has its roots in the donation of 14 acres of land by Henry B. McCormick in 1921 for use as a public park. In 1954 Mrs. Rose Crichton donated another 32 acres, and additional donations since then have brought the total size of the park up to 62 acres.