This Centre County village is home to Penn State traditions, PA’s only granary

Lemont at a glance

Population: 2,276 (as of 2020, according to the U.S. Census Bureau)

Landmarks: John I. Thompson Grain Elevator and Coal Sheds, Spring Creek Presbyterian Church, more than 60 historic houses and buildings, Mount Nittany Trailhead

Where to eat and drink: Café Lemont, Kamrai Thai & Sushi House

What else to do there: Catch a concert on the Village Green, browse local businesses, hike Mount Nittany

More info: www.lemontvillage.org/home

Only a few miles east of State College and parked in Mount Nittany’s hilly shadow, Lemont is a tapestry of its own storied history. Dozens of Victorian-style homes line Pike Street, the village’s busiest road — each one carefully restored and repurposed into a local business or residence.

The former Lemont Band Hall, built in 1918, now houses the Art Alliance of Central Pennsylvania, offering classes and exhibitions. A Gothic-style building that used to be a general store has remained a small commercial hub, home to coffee shop Café Lemont and other businesses.

This preservation mindset is part of what has allowed the community to maintain its distinct charm, said Sue Smith, chair of the Lemont Village Association and resident of more than 50 years. Despite sitting on the outskirts of Penn State’s campus, life in Lemont feels more removed from the bustle of State College, where the landscape is constantly changing.

“We’re certainly not tearing down old buildings,” Smith said. “We value our old buildings.”

Preserving Lemont’s history

When ironmaster Moses Thompson bought the land that would become Lemont in 1869, one of the first things to change was its name. For most of the century, the area was simply called “End of the Mountain,” a not-so-subtle nod to Mount Nittany, which looms in the distance over every corner of the village.

It was his son, John I. Thompson, who gave the area its new name: Lemont, French for “the mountain.”

The village began to grow largely because of its place along the Pennsylvania Railroad, connecting the Lewisburg & Tyrone Railroad to nearby Bellefonte. Today, residents and visitors can still see the tracks that run through the community, though it’s now used only occasionally during events by the Bellefonte Historical Railroad Society.

But when the railroad was first completed in 1885, it ran through Lemont twice a day, prompting the younger Thompson to build a grain elevator and coal sheds just steps from the tracks on what is now Mount Nittany Road. The buildings functioned as a transfer station through the 1950s, a place where incoming trains could deposit coal and outgoing trains could haul bushels of grain to be milled.

When the Lemont Village Association bought the property in 1994, the granary was suffering from decades of nonuse — much of the wood rotting away and the inside overflowing with old appliances and magazines. Its owner insisted the land not be used for commercial purposes.

“If someone else bought it, the buildings were probably going to be taken down and used for dorms,” said Ron Smith, Sue’s husband and Lemont’s de facto historian. “We thought it was worth saving.”

The restoration project has cost more than $500,000 over the past two decades — mostly through grants and donations — but it’s allowed the granary to remain an integral centerpoint of the Lemont community.

String lights still line some corners of the grain elevator, remnants of a recent wedding hosted on the property. For more than a decade in the late ’90s and 2000s, the wooden buildings were transformed into a haunted house every year, pulling from legends of children who died 100 years ago while working in the heaping bushels of grain.

Now the last remaining grain elevator in Pennsylvania, the space also hosts Lemont’s annual Christmas market, and in the past, it’s been the venue for local farmers markets and gourmet candlelit dinners.

Building community

As an unincorporated community within College Township, there’s no direct government in Lemont. The closest thing the village has to a mayor is Sue Smith herself, who first moved to the area with her husband and two young children in 1968.

At the time, Smith said, the village hadn’t yet developed beyond the historic district, and its residents were mostly families who were already finished raising their kids — and had lived in Lemont their whole lives. It took a while to break into the tight-knit community, she said, a task she finally accomplished after bringing a ham to the visitation of a neighbor who had died.

“That was when we started meeting people,” Smith said. “And my goal ever since has been to make sure people who are new feel welcome.”

Today, building community is worked into the fabric of Lemont. Almost all village residents collect their mail from the local post office, where a bulletin board shares job opportunities, upcoming events and other notices. Whenever there’s a blast at the nearby quarry, Smith sends out a message to all Lemont Village Association members about an hour in advance.

When it comes to mowing the grass by the local playground or organizing annual events, volunteers across the village are willing to jump in and help.

“It’s nice to get new families who are moving in involved because the old guard is getting older,” Smith said. “We really need involvement by young people, and that’s happening.”

At the 42nd annual Strawberry Festival in June, the volunteer effort included more than 100 people. The festival ended up being one of the largest in Lemont’s history, attracting more than 1,000 visitors — and there was plenty of berries and ice cream to go around.

Hiking, music and shopping

Lemont is also home to other summertime activities and Penn State traditions, like hiking Mount Nittany. Over the past few decades, Ron and Sue Smith have watched countless students walk through the historic district, past the granary and up toward the trailhead. She hopes to install a public bathroom in Lemont for future hikers traveling through the village, she said.

The grassy space outside the granary, the Village Green, also hosts a weekly concert series every Friday from June through September — a 21-year tradition that sometimes attracts nearly 200 guests, Smith said.

Visitors are encouraged to grab takeout from Kamrai Thai & Sushi House, which is only open on the weekends, before each concert and enjoy the live music picnic style.

But if hiking isn’t your speed or you’re passing through Lemont on a day when there isn’t a concert planned, there’s still a few other ways to spend some time in the village. Grab a coffee at Café Lemont; browse the Gallery Shop or Bella Donna Herbs; or schedule a yoga class or massage at the Center for Well Being.

This story was originally published August 1, 2024 at 12:00 PM.