PA: Keystone Town Markers

[CanesFan27]

A local community organization and also one citizen are doing their best to preserve Keystone Town Markers - and even try to bring them back to Pennsylvania highways.

PA Keystone Town Markers were erected over 60 years ago by the former PA Dept. of Highways as a way to notify motorists that they were entering a town, cross a river, or other geographical features.  These signs not only included the name of the municipality, but also how it was named or an historical anecdote, the year it was founded, and the distance to the next town.

Fortunately, many of these signs still stand today - but many are not in the best condition.  

One group, the Pine Creek Preservation Association has recently restored a number of these signs in Lycoming County.  And one citizen, Nathaniel Guest, is trying to secure the manufacture and funding to produce the markers for municipalities that lost their Keystone over the years.

I have photos of the PCPA sign restoration project and details on Mr. Guest's project on the blog.

http://surewhynotnow.blogspot.com/2009/10/local-pennsylvania-communities.html

Take a look and if you know of any sources to help either group, be sure to share!

[PAHighways]

It's nice to hear someone is spearheading their restoration as well as trying to bring them back.

I'll have to see if the Lincoln Highway Heritage Corridor can help with the restoration of old ones and installation of new ones along 30.

[CanesFan27]

An update on the PA Keystone Sign Preservation Project -
http://surewhynotnow.blogspot.com/2010/01/pa-keystone-markers-preservation-update.html

And an update to the PA Keystone Town Markers portion of gn.com -
http://www.gribblenation.com/papics/keystone/

10 new markers added and a good dozen or so still to add.

[CanesFan27]

Jim Carn has recently restored three more PA Keystone Town Markers in North Central Pennsylvania.

http://surewhynotnow.blogspot.com/2010/04/more-pa-keystone-town-markers-news.html

Also, Nathaniel Guest and the PA Keystone Marker Trust is preparing to make a presentation at the upcoming Statewide Conference on Heritage next month.

[Ian]

It is nice to see various communities restoring these signs!

[Mr_Northside]

There is one along Bus. US-22 entering Churchill (going east towards Pittsburgh) that looks like it fell victim to a plow or something this winter, as it got broke in half.  (I think the half that broke off is still laying on the ground last time I paid attention)

[CanesFan27]

Few updates:

First, Jim Carn, who has on his own restored over a dozen keystones in North Central Pennsylvania, was featured in an article of the Webb Weekly this past summer.
http://surewhynotnow.blogspot.com/2010/10/keystone-town-marker-restorer-featured.html

And, shocking as it is, I've updated the PA Keystone Town Markers page on gribblenation with 24 new photos.

http://www.gribblenation.com/papics/keystone/

[Mr_Northside]

http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/news/westmoreland/s_771577.html

Nice to hear (read) people are still going at this preservation/restoration initiative.

[goobnav]

Nice to see that my native history is being preserved but, I doubt that the broke PA government will fund it right now.  I give kudos to the PA people for going out and doing on their own.

Need to check if any of them survived the floods of September.