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The Pennsylvania collection

Crawford County

10 places. A county full of stories.

Discover local legends, historic places and the stories of sites you can explore virtually.

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Street view of Meadville’s Academy Theatre on Chestnut Street.Inns & businesses

Academy Theatre

Ernie is the familiar name given to the Academy Theatre’s ghost in Meadville. The name refers to Ernest P. Hempstead, the newspaper editor whose…

Detail of a 1925 topographic map showing Bousson School, Little Sugar Creek and roads near the estate.Historic homes

Bousson Environmental Research Reserve

Otthille and Lydie Bousson made a fortune producing shirts in New York for wealthy customers, including Ulysses S. Grant. They later built a brick…

White columns and balconies along the brick facade of Brooks Hall, Allegheny College.Schools

Brooks Hall

At Allegheny College in Meadville, Brooks Hall’s ghost story grew around a romantic campus ritual called pinning. A fraternity member presented his…

The Blue Streak’s wooden track sweeps down above a lattice of pale timber, with the ride’s name fixed to the supports.Outdoors

Former Blue Streak roller coaster

Conneaut Lake Park's Blue Streak opened in 1938, sending riders through a dark tunnel before the first hill. A story repeated by coaster enthusiasts…

Aerial photograph from 2010 of the Meadville Days Inn, showing the main complex and the separate rectangular building to its east.Inns & businesses · Aerial view

Former Days Inn Hotel and Conference Center

The former Days Inn Hotel and Conference Center on Conneaut Lake Road in Meadville had stories involving its second floor. In a guest account posted…

The wooden Riverside Inn and its tower in Cambridge Springs in 2011, six years before the fire.Inns & businesses

Former Riverside Inn at 1 Fountain Avenue

The Riverside Inn in Cambridge Springs was built in the 1880s as a resort for visitors drawn to the area’s mineral springs. Long after that…

Hotel Conneaut exterior photographed in June 2006.Inns & businesses

Hotel Conneaut

Hotel Conneaut stands beside Conneaut Lake in Crawford County. Its best-known ghost legend concerns a bride called Elizabeth, supposedly trapped…

The surviving stone masonry of John Brown’s tannery beside a country road in New Richmond.Bridges & railways

John Brown Road just south of PA 77

John Brown built a tannery at New Richmond in Crawford County in 1826, more than thirty years before his raid on Harpers Ferry made him a national…

Detail of an 1898 fire insurance map showing the Arlington Hotel beside the Linesville opera house.Inns & businesses

Knickerbocker Hotel

Milo and Clara Arnold opened the Arnold House hotel in Linesville with a ball on January 12, 1882. The building later became the Knickerbocker Hotel,…

Historic USGS map of the hill west of Kerrtown with the WMGW radio towers marked.Outdoors

Radio Tower Hill near Kerrtown

Radio Tower Hill near Meadville became known locally as Pig Hill through a lovers’ lane legend. Teenagers told of piglike cannibals that attacked…