History & local legend
Baker Mansion in Altoona was built in 1849 for ironmaster Elias Baker. Its best-known ghost story concerns his daughter Anna, who never married and died in the mansion in 1914. In the legend, Anna falls in love with an ironworker, but her father refuses to allow a marriage beneath the family’s social standing. Her disappointment is then linked to a wedding dress displayed in the house, said to move inside its case.
The dress has a history of its own. In a 2025 account, Jim Lowe, president of the Blair County Historical Society, explained that it belonged to Elizabeth Bell, daughter of another local ironmaster. She wore it to marry William Patterson Dysart in 1831; it was not Anna’s unworn wedding gown.
Lowe also described a museum director attaching a string to the dress in the late 1970s so it could be moved during tours. The story subsequently gathered reports of shifting slippers, weeping, and Anna’s reflection in the glass.
