Cresson, Pennsylvania

Cresson Township is a township in Cambria County, Pennsylvania, United States. The population was 2,820 at the 2020 census. The township surrounds the boroughs of Cresson and Sankertown but is separate from them. It is part of the Johnstown, Pennsylvania Metropolitan Statistical Area.

The Benjamin Franklin Jones Cottage (also known as Braemar Cottage) is a cottage on the National Register of Historic Places in Cresson Township, Cambria County, Pennsylvania, United States.In 1990, the mansion was purchased by a group that desired to restore it. In November 2009, a county judge declared the declining property a nuisance and ordered that it be demolished. When the historical group appealed to the Pennsylvania Commonwealth Court, the town supervisors agreed to postpone the demolition until May 2010. A request for a $150,000 grant that the group hoped could fund renovations was rejected.The structure was saved from demolition in 2011 when it was purchased by a Cresson, Pennsylvania couple who intended to restore it.

Sankertown is a borough in Cambria County, Pennsylvania, United States. It is part of the Johnstown, Pennsylvania Metropolitan Statistical Area. The population was 675 at the 2010 census.

Mount Aloysius College is a private Catholic college in Cresson, Pennsylvania. It was founded in 1853 and is conducted under the tradition of the Sisters of Mercy. The college is located on a 193-acre campus in the Allegheny Mountains.

State Correctional Institution – Cresson was a medium-security, all male correctional facility, located off U.S. Route 22, about 10 miles west of Altoona along Old Route 22 in the Western part of the commonwealth of Pennsylvania. On January 8, 2013 state officials announced the prison would be closed. The prison closed June 30, 2013 and the land was put up for sale by the state.

Allegheny Township is a township in Cambria County, Pennsylvania, United States. It is part of the Johnstown, Pennsylvania Metropolitan Statistical Area. The population was 2,851 at the 2010 census, up from 2,498 at the 2000 census. The township is the site of the Federal Correctional Institution, Loretto.

Blair Gap, one of the gaps of the Allegheny, is a water gap along the eastern face atop the Allegheny Front escarpment. Like other gaps of the Allegheny, the slopes of Blair Gap were amenable to foot travel, pack mules, and possibly wagons allowing Amerindians, and then, after about 1778–1780 settlers, to travel west into the relatively depopulated Ohio Country decades before the railroads were born and tied the country together with steel. The gap was used historically for the upper sections of the Allegheny Portage Railroad, which as was authorized by the enabling acts in 1824 of Pennsylvania's Main Line of Public Works as part of the Pennsylvania Canal System which originally envisioned linking Pittsburgh to Philadelphia by canals. In the early 1900s, U.S. Route 22 followed alongside the watercourse through the gap. Until the 1920s, after new founded auto clubs gathered enough numbers to political clout to push for initiatives creating roads between towns, off the railroads the primary means of travel town to town was on foot or where hauling was needed, using wagons. There were only five ways through the Appalachians east to west: Around the bottom (plains or Piedmont area) in Georgia, the Cumberland Gap, the Cumberland Narrows, the gaps of the Allegheny Front, and up the Hudson River then around the north end of the Catskills and across Upstate New York to the Great Lakes. All other transits involve difficult climbs a man on foot can only make with great difficulty, and which animal drawn transport could not. Geographically and geologically, without the large projects and engineering capabilities of the 20th century, there were exactly three internal regions where it was possible to get animal powered vehicles from the east side to the west side of the Appalachian Mountains, making five routes overall counting traveling around the plains at either end of the western chain. Below Canada, the geologic nature of successive barrier ridges of the Ridge and Valley Appalachians runs from the valley of the Hudson, the Delaware Water Gap down through all of northern Pennsylvania, sundering eastern and central Pennsylvania, Maryland, North Carolina, Virginia, Western Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Kentucky, and Tennessee.

Gallitzin is a borough in Cambria County, Pennsylvania, United States. It is bordered by Gallitzin Township and Tunnelhill, all of which sit astride the Eastern continental divide. Tunnel Hill and Gallitzin both are pierced by railroad tunnels shortening the necessary ascent for rails crossing the Allegheny Front onto the Allegheny Plateau which encompasses the towns' terrains. Topping the gaps of the Allegheny, the area is one of only five major breaks in the Appalachians allowing east–west transportation corridors before the advent of 20th century technologies.

The Gallitzin Tunnels in Gallitzin, Pennsylvania, are a set of three adjacent tunnels through the Allegheny Mountains in western Pennsylvania. They were completed in 1854, 1855, and 1902 by the Pennsylvania Railroad as part of the cross-state route that includes the nearby Horseshoe Curve to the east. Their ownership has since passed to Penn Central Transportation Company, then to Conrail, and most recently to the Norfolk Southern Railway. The tunnels are currently used by Norfolk Southern freight trains and Amtrak Pennsylvanian passenger trains.

Gallitzin Township is a township in Cambria County, Pennsylvania, United States. The township nearly surrounds, but is a separate entity from, Gallitzin borough. As of the 2010 census, the township population was 1,324. It is part of the Johnstown, Pennsylvania Metropolitan Statistical Area.

The Allegheny Portage Railroad was the first railroad constructed through the Allegheny Mountains in central Pennsylvania. It operated from 1834 to 1854 as the first transportation infrastructure through the gaps of the Allegheny that connected the midwest to the eastern seaboard across the barrier range of the Allegheny Front. Approximately 36 miles (58 km) long overall, both ends connected to the Pennsylvania Canal, and the system was primarily used as a portage railway, hauling river boats and barges over the divide between the Ohio and the Susquehanna Rivers. Today, the remains of the railroad are preserved within the Allegheny Portage Railroad National Historic Site operated by the National Park Service. The railroad was authorized as part of the Main Line of Public Works legislation in 1824. It had five inclines on either side of the drainage divide running athwart the ridge line from Blair Gap through along the kinked saddle at the summit into Cresson, Pennsylvania. The endpoints connected to the Canal at Johnstown on the west through the relative flats to Hollidaysburg on the east. The Railroad utilized cleverly designed wheeled barges to ride a narrow-gauge rail track with steam-powered stationary engines lifting the vehicles. The roadbed of the railroad did not incline monotonically upwards, but rose in relatively long, saw-toothed stretches of slightly-sloped flat terrain suitable to animal powered towing, alternating with steep cable railway inclined planes using static steam engine powered windlasses, similar to mechanisms of modern ski lifts. Except for peak moments of severe storms, it was an all-weather, all-seasons operation. Along with the rest of the Main Works, it cut transport time from Philadelphia to the Ohio River from weeks to just 3–5 days. Considered a technological marvel in its day, it played a critical role in opening the interior of the United States beyond the Appalachian Mountains to settlement and commerce. It included the first railroad tunnel in the United States, the Staple Bend Tunnel, and its inauguration was marked with great fanfare.

Tunnelhill is a borough that is located in Cambria and Blair counties in Pennsylvania, United States. The population was 363 at the 2010 census. Of these, 245 were in Cambria County, and 118 were in Blair County. It is part of the Altoona, PA Metropolitan Statistical Area. Tunnelhill is named after the many railroad tunnels of the Pennsylvania Railroad near here known as the Gallitzin Tunnels.