Thursday, January 19, 2012

Mount Carmel, PA - Family Fun Day

On Saturday, January 7, with the beautiful weather we were having, the hubby and I decided to go have a "Family Fun Day". We went for a drive to the pretty little town of Mount Carmel, PA.  We have visited a few times before, but only in the cold weather. It was nice enough outside to be able to walk around town. We went to the Mount Carmel Area Public Library website and found a Walking Tour of Mount Carmel, PA. How cool is that? This town has it's own walking tour to show people some of it's historical building and teach about the town's history! That was the perfect way to spend our Family Fun Day! The library's web page also taught me something that I did not know.... there is a Mount Carmel native who is pretty famous! Have you ever heard of Ellen Albertini Dow? What about the rapping grandmother from The Wedding Singer? I was shocked when saw that! I have always loved her part of that movie!

Anyway, I have included some pictures that we took of our favorite parts of the Walking Tour of Mount Carmel, PA. There are 22 places to see on the tour and about 7 of them are churches. We only took pictures of 1 of the churches, but I didn't include it. The kids were getting a little tired of getting in and out of the car. (The tour is too spread apart to walk with a 17 month old.) We drove around and looked at the places highlighted in the tour and then decided what we wanted to capture pictures of.


# 7 American Legion / LT. Gavin Memorial & Marker

We started with the American Legion building. This picture was taken in the car, but I plan to get out next time we are there. There is also the LT. Gavin Memorial & Marker located in front.



#  8 Old Borough Hall & Lockup
This building was built in the 1880s.  It has been used as a police station (the police lockup was in the basement) and borough council chamber (until the 1960s), the first public library (in 1961) and is now a cute little store.



# 9 National Hotel

This building (built by Thomas Scott) is one of the oldest buildings in town, having been built in the late 1860s. His descendants still live in Mount Carmel.



A close-up of the front door of the old hotel.



# 10 Home of William Schwenk

This has to be one of the more unique buildings in town. It is a single family home on the main street through town. Mount Carmel was the 8th town in the country to have electricity. This was the first house to have electricity installed, on January 22, 1884.



A close-up of the front of the house. In the space to the left, you can see that there are actually windows on that side of the house! Isn't this house neat?



# 11 William T. Montelius House & Store

Located on the same block as the Home of William Schwenk, is this home / store built in 1873-74. A fire wiped out the block on July 24, 1873, and this was one of the houses built after the fire. The store used to showcase trendy fashion.
 


One of my favorite doors in town.



This building is not actually on the tour. I just really like this building! It is the former Guarantee Trust & Safe Deposit Co building.


A close-up of the sign etched into the building along with a clock that doesn't appear to work.


This is another building that was not on the tour. This one was my son's favorite. He thought it was really neat that the building had not 1 but 2 different advertisements. The original one was for Ivory Soap and the other one is for Cubanola Cigars. As time passes, the cigar ad fades and the Ivory ad shows through.


This is another reason I love this town... the original roads show through! It's only in a few spots, but it is super neat!


This is a larger section of original road that can be seen. This isn't a very busy part of town - to the left is an alley.



# 15 Judge Lincoln S. Walter House

This is the side of the house. While it is not in the best shape outside... but I think it is beautiful!


Check out the detail work of this chimney!! They do not make them like this anymore!


This is the front of the house. It could definitely use some landscaping work, but in it's day, this was a big, beautiful home! 



Another view...



Looking at the front door from the sidewalk. There was a cat hiding in the brush. I'm not sure which one of us was scared more!



We had a wonderful time walking around the town of Mount Carmel. We will definitely go back... hopefully when the weather is warmer.

8 comments:

  1. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  2. The picture that shows a larger section of the original road, also shows Thomas Scott's home, purchased in 1897, the Scott family recently sold the home, after 119 years of occupancy. The street to the left is not really an alley, it is Beech St, and recently paved.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Since writing this post, I have learned quite a little bit more of the history of some of the places in Mount Carmel. This house was one of them. It was one of two of my favorite houses in town. I saw they had listed it for sale last fall. My husband and I had always said that we would try and buy it if were ever for sale. Sadly, we moved a few years ago, so when it did come up for sale, we were not able to purchase it. I do hope that the new owners fix it up and return it to it's original glory! I did not include an actual picture of the house in this, as it wasn't part of the walking tour, but I do think that it should be! I was not aware that they repaved the alley. I truly loved seeing the sections of original street! Thank you so much for the update!

      Delete
  3. The picture that shows a larger section of the original road, also shows Thomas Scott's home, purchased in 1897, the Scott family recently sold the home, after 119 years of occupancy. The street to the left is not really an alley, it is Beech St, and recently paved.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Since writing this post, I have learned quite a little bit more of the history of some of the places in Mount Carmel. This house was one of them. It was one of two of my favorite houses in town. I saw they had listed it for sale last fall. My husband and I had always said that we would try and buy it if were ever for sale. Sadly, we moved a few years ago, so when it did come up for sale, we were not able to purchase it. I do hope that the new owners fix it up and return it to it's original glory! I did not include an actual picture of the house in this, as it wasn't part of the walking tour, but I do think that it should be! I was not aware that they repaved the alley. I truly loved seeing the sections of original street! Thank you so much for the update!

      Delete
  4. The picture that show a larger section of the original road, also shows Thomas Scott's home, purchased in 1897, the Scott family recently sold the home, after 119 years of occupancy. The street to the left is not really an alley, it is Beech St, and recently paved.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Since writing this post, I have learned quite a little bit more of the history of some of the places in Mount Carmel. This house was one of them. It was one of two of my favorite houses in town. I saw they had listed it for sale last fall. My husband and I had always said that we would try and buy it if were ever for sale. Sadly, we moved a few years ago, so when it did come up for sale, we were not able to purchase it. I do hope that the new owners fix it up and return it to it's original glory! I did not include an actual picture of the house in this, as it wasn't part of the walking tour, but I do think that it should be! I was not aware that they repaved the alley. I truly loved seeing the sections of original street! Thank you so much for the update!

      Delete
  5. William T, who owned the "salmon" color house was my great great great uncle. I would love to take a look inside that house! I love the "M" door too.

    ReplyDelete