Effort underway to make Route 45 in Centre County a PA Scenic Byway. Here’s why

The Ferguson Township Supervisors voted last week to send a letter of support to the Happy Valley Adventure Bureau for an effort that would make a scenic Centre County route the county’s second Pennsylvania Byway.

Pennsylvania Route 45, also known as the “Purple Heart Highway,” is an 86-mile-long road that runs from Mooresburg, Montour County, to Water Street, Huntingdon County, with a section of it running through Centre County. The route runs through seven county municipalities: Ferguson, Gregg, Haines, Harris, Penn and Potter townships, and Millheim Borough.

Along the route sits a wealth of both natural and man-made attractions, including views of the mountains of Rothrock State Forest, the historic Pennsylvania Military Museum, Woodward Cave, Rhoneymeade Arboretum and Sculpture Garden and more.

Those attractions are one of the reasons why HVAB wants to see the route made a state byway, and HVAB’s Vice President of Marketing and Strategic Partnerships Josiah Jones and Public Relations Director Lesley Kistner spoke about the effort during the Sept. 2 supervisors meeting.

At the meeting, the HVAB officials aimed to secure a letter of support for their mission, and talked of the many benefits that a byway could bring to the township, including increased tourism, preservation of historic and natural landmarks in the township, grant opportunities and more.

“What this does is when you say [to a state grant program], or whatever you’re applying for, that you’re along a state byway or next to it, you get moved up ahead of some other [applications] in the process,” Jones said. “That, and whenever there’s a state byway that we’re promoting businesses on, it’ll be a big economic driver for them and those communities [the businesses are located in] too.”

Kistner said that both Harris Township and Millheim Borough had already submitted letters of support, with Gregg and Potter townships being the next two they’ll ask.

The supervisors unanimously voted to submit a letter of support, but it didn’t come without some questions first, specifically about the sort of signage that would be put up if the designation does go through.

Questions were also asked about what would happen to the billboards along the route, since new billboards aren’t allowed to be erected along a state byway.

Jones explained that the signage would be mainly large, blue signs decorated with mountain laurel (the state flower) and the words “Pennsylvania Byway,” and that they would typically be erected in busy intersections along the route. As for the billboards, any pre-existing ones can remain standing.

“If [pre-existing billboards] begin to get delapitated, of course those can be fixed, but aside from that, everything will stay as it is now,” Jones said.

Originally, when the HVAB started the byway process, Jones and Kistner were going from municipality to municipality, trying to get their respective councils and supervisors to agree to a resolution that banned new billboards from being put up, as one way of securing a byway involved the pre-approval of a billboard ban.

After some pushback though, Jones learned that the resolutions weren’t necessary, and instead, letters of support could be gathered and submitted to a state legislator, who would then submit legislation for the byway’s designation.

If Route 45 eventually does become a byway, it will join the High Plateu Scenic Byway, which runs along Pennsylvania Route 144 from Snow Show to Renovo, Clinton County, as the second state byway in Centre County.

If the designation goes through, Jones and Kistner said that HVAB would like to begin advertising Route 45 as a byway through the creation of “around a thousand” pamphlets that would detail what can be found along the route, along with a possible media advertising campaign.

“What we do with [the pamphlets] is take them to trade shows and promote them, because there people are always looking for new bike routes, new routes to drive their car — they like the three-hour travel,” Jones said.

Kistner said there are “a lot of travelers who seek out scenic byways” — which was a point that many of the supervisors agreed with.

“I just want to say that I love this idea because I could not agree more — that stretch of road that we have in Ferguson Township on Route 45 is phenomenal,” Supervisor Matthew Heller said. “I really appreciate you two coming to us with this.”

While a timeline on the route’s designation was not clear, future updates on Route 45’s possible byway designation will be shared by HVAB.