Town of the Week, August 8, 1998

Take a visit to Boswell, Pennsylvania; listen in.

Boswell, Pennsylvania

It was Thomas Taylor Boswell who built the world's largest tipple. He bought 3 farms in Somerset County near Johnstown, Pennsylvania in 1900, to mine coal he believed was underneath. The ten-story high tipple, or steel viaduct, dropped coal down a 1200-foot slide.

The borough was incorporated in 1904, and is laid out in a one-mile square. Every couple of homes were built of brick or stone to reduce the chances of a disastrous fire. This unique feature put the town on the National Historic Register in 1994.

When coal mining ended about 1940, the tipple was dismantled. Mines were replaced by garment factories, which because of foreign competition, closed about 1970. So this town of 1480 people relies today on tourism to a large degree, and leads the country in four-wheel drive use.

Known as the first place in Pennsylvania where it snows, and the last for snow to go, Boswell is just a short distance from the famed Seven Springs Resort. Boswell is part of the Laurel Highlands tourist area, capped by Laurel Mt. State Park.

Alan Freed, the man credited with giving rock and roll its name has a Boswell connection. His family lived here many years when his father was an employee of the Shoff General Store, now the Helping Hands Food Pantry.

Just outside the borough limits, Old Boswell Village is a collection of over 40 log structures providing a typical colonial frontier village. This town is the home of the North Star high school Cougars and Lady Cougars, and it's our Town of the Week, Boswell, Pennsylvania.