Skip to main content

4th of July Vacation - Day 4 - Washington County Roadtrip

On the morning of the 4th of July, I took a quick but very enjoyable jaunt into rural areas of Washington County.

Route: I-70, PA 18, PA 231, US 40, I-70.

For the full set of photos - head over to flickr.

I picked up PA 18 in Washington; and after Route 18 leaves US 40, I came across this semi-abandoned building.

IMG_7544

I believe this was once a train station, but there are no tracks nearby.  The grounds around this building are being used for a brick and concrete forming yard.  If anyone knows what this old building was, please leave a comment!

Just down the road from the building was a Keystone Town Marker for Washington.

Washington

South of Prosperity is where the goodies on PA 18 really start to show up.

First, Day Covered Bridge.  Like many of the covered bridges in Washington County, the Day Bridge is a short queenpost truss, and is over a century old.  The Day Bridge has been in place since 1875.

IMG_7548

A little further down the road was the first Chew Mail Pouch Tobacco Barn that I have photographed.  One of my photographic influences, Fred Yenerall, took photos of hundreds of these barns in the 1960s and 70s.

Chew Mail Pouch Tobacco Barn - Old Concord, PA

This is the first of hopefully many of these barns and more.

Just up the road, an old oxbow alignment of PA 18 goes through the village of Old Concord.  Surprisingly, or maybe not, there is a Keystone Town Marker there.

Old Concord - 1

Along PA 231, there are a number of old concrete bridges over small creeks and tributaries.  On most of these bridges there are slightly different bridge plates - at least compared to others of that era.  Most of the bridges have a keystone as the plate, like this one below.  (It's found on the 1940 truss bridge over Slippery Rock Creek from the day before.)

1940 PA Dept. of Highways - Bridge Plate

The ones on PA 231 are actually in the shape of Washington County.  What is also different is that the bridge plate names the bridge and body of water it crosses.

Washington County Bridge Plate

PA 231 meets US 40 and the National Road in Claysville.  Claysville is truly a product of the National Road.  Founded by John Purviance in 1817 as a wagon stop on the road, Claysville is named in honor of Henry Clay.

IMG_7561

Claysville has numerous homes and buildings that date back to the 1800s.

IMG_7568

Oddly, the best find in Claysville wasn't an item that dates back to the 19th century.  On one of the old homes on Main Street, I found a 48 star United States flag.

IMG_7573

From there, I took US 40 back towards Washington where I picked up I-70 and headed home.  And that's it from the trip home to Pennsylvania.

Comments

John Bronson said…
Most likely, it was a freight depot. There was a rail line along SR 18 north of downtown along Catfish Creek.

http://mapper.acme.com/?ll=40.17504,-80.25500&z=16&t=T
Anonymous said…
This is the old Washington and Waynesburg RR station on south Main Street.
The W&WRR was a narrow gauge steam loco RR that meet the Penn RR as the B&O RR was one block north. Building is currently used by Judsen and Willey Cement for storage

Popular posts from this blog

The Pollasky Bridge

The Pollasky Bridge near modern day Friant is a ruined highway bridge which was completed during early 1906 as part of the Fresno-Fresno Flats Road.  The structure is one of the oldest known arch concrete spans to have been constructed in California.  The bridge briefly carried California State Route 41 following the destruction of the Lanes Bridge in 1940.  The Pollasky Bridge itself was destroyed by flooding during 1951, but the ruins can still be found on the Madera County side of the San Joaquin River.   Pictured as the blog cover is the Pollasky Bridge as it was featured in the 1913 book "The Concrete Bridge."  The structure can be seen crossing the San Joaquin River near Friant below on the 1922 United States Geological Survey Map.   Part 1; the history of the Pollasky Bridge The Pollasky Bridge site is near modern day Friant of Fresno County.  The community of Friant was established as Converse Ferry during 1852 on the San Joaquin Rive...

Trimmer Springs Road (Fresno County)

Trimmer Springs Road is an approximately forty-mile rural highway located in Fresno County.  The corridor begins near in California State Route 180 in Centerville and extends to Blackrock Road at the Kings River in the Sierra Nevada range near the Pacific Gas & Electric Company town of Balch Camp. The roadway is named after the former Trimmer Springs Resort and was originally constructed to facilitate access to the Sanger Log Flume.  Trimmer Springs Road was heavily modified and elongated after construction of Pine Flat Dam broke ground in 1947.   Part 1; the history of Trimmer Springs Road Much of the original alignment of Trimmer Springs Road was constructed to facilitate access to the Sanger Log Flume.   The  Kings River Lumber Company  had been established in 1888 in the form of a 30,000-acre purchase of forest lands in Converse Basin.  This purchase lied immediately west of Grant Grove and came to be known as "Millwood."  The co...

When was Ventura Avenue east of downtown Fresno renamed to Kings Canyon Road? (California State Route 180)

California State Route 180 was one of the original Sign State Routes designated in August 1934.  The highway east of Fresno originally utilized what was Ventura Avenue and Dunlap Road to reach what was then General Grant National Park.  By late year 1939 the highway was extended through the Kings River Canyon to Cedar Grove.   In 1940 General Grant National Park would be expanded and rebranded as Kings Canyon National Park.  The Kings Canyon Road designation first appeared in publications circa 1941 when the California State Route 180 bypass of Dunlap was completed.  Kings Canyon Road ultimately would replace the designation of Dunlap Road from Dunlap to Centerville and Ventura Avenue west to 1st Street in Fresno.   The Kings Canyon Road would remain largely intact until March 2023 when the Fresno Council designated Cesar Chavez Boulevard.  Cesar Chavez Boulevard was designated over a ten-mile corridor over what was Kings Canyon Road, remaini...