On Centre: Around Philipsburg

Picture the past at Heritage Days

Lori Falce

When I was a kid, every trip to State College started the same way. As soon as we started down North Atherton Street, my stepfather would say the same thing: “I remember when all this was farm.”

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The landscape of a place is defined not only by the structures that dot it now, but by what came before and the memories people hold from another time. And that’s what Philipsburg will be celebrating come July.

According to committee chairman Jim Pollock, the 2010 Heritage Days theme will be “Remember When,” allowing the community to celebrate what it has by looking back at what is gone.

The easiest example is the most recent. The corner of Front and Presqueisle streets wasn’t always dominated by a field of rubbly stubble. There was a time, just four years ago, when three buildings occupied it, the most prominent being a sporting goods store with its elegant crown of white-on- red architectural detail. Fire stole them in 2005.

Both the former M&T Bank (new home of Holt Memorial Library) and the dentist’s office on the next block replaced older-styled buildings that blended seemlessly with the high-facade, zero-setback dress code of the other storefronts.

Farther down the street, the Philipsburg Towers was built on the bones of the Passmore Hotel. A block east, you find Lee Industries, but little trace of the bottling company that once stood in its place.

Pollock’s team has planning for the 2010 celebration under way, and volunteers are encouraged to attend the first Wednesday meetings at the borough building at 7 p.m.

Also needed? Old pictures that show pieces of Philipsburg the way it used to be. The peanut shop. The brewery. The theaters. (Yes, there were more than just the Rowland.)

If you have any to lend, contact the borough office at 342-3440.

Lori Falce writes a weekly column featuring news and happenings in the Rush Township/Philipsburg area. Send comments and suggestions to her at sendlorinews@gmail.com.