Broad Top Area Coal Miners Museum - 704 South Main Street, Robertsdale PA 16674
Delightful in both its breadth and its clutter, this museum tells multiple stories — of the miners from all over Europe who made their livelihoods and their homes on the Broad Top, of the two railroads that served it (the standard-gauge Huntingdon & Broad Top Mountain was the other), and of the children who grew up here, attending school, playing baseball, marrying, celebrating holidays, and enduring good times and bad. Be sure to check out the lower level, where you’ll find both a projector from the nearby Reality Theater and a recreation of a mine interior. A must-see!
East Broad Top Railroad - 421 Meadow Street, Rockhill Furnace PA 17249
Excursions take passengers on a scenic one-hour roundtrip through rolling hills, farms, and forests. Trains depart northbound from the historic Orbisonia Station along our narrow-gauge mainline, originally constructed in 1872. Take a true step back in time and enjoy a ride on America’s oldest operating narrow gauge railroad.
Friends of the East Broad Top Museum - 550 South Main St, Robertsdale, PA 16674
The EBT’s invaluable volunteer organization worked for years to renovate the Old Post Office building in Robertsdale as a museum and library. The Old Post Office is across the tracks from the EBT’s Robertsdale station and across the street from what was the Rockhill Iron & Coal Co. office building, which houses the Post Office now. (The fourth corner of this so-called “company square” was home to a company store, since demolished.) The railroad recently lent the Friends three hopper cars which have been spotted on the scale track just above the station.
Huntingdon and Broad Top Rail Trail -
The Huntingdon & Broad Top Mountain Railroad was a standard-gauge line serving coal mines on the west side of the Broad Top. Over 10 miles of the route, between Riddlesburg and Tatesville, are now a hiking/biking trail with great views and occasional glimpses of history. The most spectacular remnant of the railroad is the High Bridge at Cypher, a 1937 deck-truss structure on which the trail crosses the Raystown Branch of the Juniata.
Isett Heritage Museum - 11941 Stone Creek Ridge Rd, Huntingdon, PA 16652
After Melvin Isett, a local entrepreneur, sold his cable-television company, he devoted himself to expanding a local-history collection that now fills multiple buildings with just about everything you can imagine. Farm equipment, mining tools, phonographs and early televisions, furniture, a vintage dentist’s office, a comprehensive collection of cameras, and much, much more. Plan to spend several hours. The guided tour costs the same as the self-guided version, but trust us — the tour guides are terrific.
Standing Stone Trail: Climbing the Thousand Steps
Constructed so that workers could commute to the ganister-rock quarries on Jacks Mountain, the Thousand Steps are now a popular hiking destination with terrific views and, at the top, ruins of a tiny railroad that served the quarries. One website describes the 1,036-step climb as equal to a one-hour Stairmaster workout.
Swigart Museum - 12031 William Penn Hwy; Huntingdon, PA 16652
With its roots in 1920 — back when Ford was still making the Model T — America’s oldest antique automobile museum has an astonishing collection. Its treasures include a 1903 Curved Dash Oldsmobile and a 1916 Scripps-Booth Town Car custom made for the athlete Eleanora Sears — one of the most striking cars you’ll ever see. The museum has not one Tucker but two, plus one of the VW Beetles that starred as “Herbie, the Love Bug.”