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Somerset County: Home to triumph, tragedy, peaks and a lot of history

Mirror photo by Cherie HIcks The Flight Path Walkway leads to this overlook at the Flight 93 National Memorial.

Editor’s note: This is the 17th installment in a regular series on travel. In this installment, we visit Somerset County.

SOMERSET — Somerset County is Pennsylvania’s seventh largest in size with 1,075 acres, much of it in beautiful, rolling hills of farmland and forests and the state’s highest peak at Mount Davis.

But this land hasn’t always been kind to the people. In a new visitor center at the Flight 93 National Memorial near here, you can get every detail of how an Allegheny Mountain field claimed 40 lives on Sept. 11, 2001.

A mere 10 miles away, at the Quecreek Mine Rescue Site, is the story of how the ground tried to swallow nine more people only 10 months after the worst terrorist attack on America.

But more than just recent history has been preserved here: A thriving historical community lets you go back hundreds of years; you can take self-guided driving tours to covered bridges and historic barns and visit an early 19th century opera house; and visit quaint towns home to modern features from an arts center to a speedway to a bike path that connects Pittsburgh and Washington, D.C.

Only an hour’s drive from Altoona, Somerset County has plenty to do. And if you haven’t been to the Flight 93 Memorial visitor center, which opened 18 months ago, it should be the first stop. It is open daily from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. while the park itself is open sunrise to sunset; admission is free. More than 385,000 visitors checked in last year, according to the National Park Service.

Intense

“You walk through the door and it walks you through that day, how it started with blue skies in New York,” said Sheena Baker, communications coordinator for the Somerset County Chamber of Commerce and a volunteer and board member of the Flight 93 Memorial. “It has the full story, not just of Flight 93, but all of 9/11.”

The profundity immediately sets in as you see the first exhibit of the first plane hitting the World Trade Center. It doesn’t diminish until after you exit the place, if then.

You can pick up a phone and listen in on the last calls made by those lost passengers.

“It can be pretty intense,” Baker said in an understatement.

You can read where U.S. fighter pilots were preparing to scramble and take out an American airliner full of civilians.

“It should come with a warning,” Baker said. “It’s sad.”

You can look out a viewing window across the grounds and see the Memorial Plaza and, maybe, the boulder that marks the spot of impact. Or you can exit the center and walk the Flight Path Walkway to an overlook. Then, walk or drive down to the Memorial Plaza and Wall of Names.

Baker noted that the Flight 93 Memorial is a more calm and peaceful setting, compared with the New York City 9/11 memorial, owing to its presence in a lonely field; reverent visitors act like they’re in a library, whispering if they say anything at all. The long driveway from Route 30 honors the 40 dead with a memorial grove of trees for each; by 2018, the Tower of Voices will reach 93 feet into the sky and have 40 different wind chimes.

Triumph

After leaving the Flight 93 Memorial, take Route 30 to Route 219 and to Route 601 and follow the signs to the Quecreek Mine Rescue Site, 15 miles away via highway.

“Go to Flight 93 first,” said Bill Arnold, executive director at Quecreek Mine Rescue Foundation and Visitor Center. “Tour operators tell me if they go there last, the ride home is silent, morbid-like. If they come here last, it’s a much better mood.”

Quecreek represents “triumph over tragedy,” Baker said.

“I think that without Flight 93, Quecreek wouldn’t have become as important as it did,” she said. “It was just 10 months (after 9/11), and everybody was thinking, ‘Are we going to have another tragic situation?’ Thankfully, it was a happy moment.”

It didn’t start out that way. Arnold remembers that Wednesday night, July 24, 2002, when his barking dogs woke him from sleep. He grabbed his pistol and went outside to find men standing in his cow pasture that remains part of his family’s 150-acre Dormel Farm.

“There’s been an accident in the mine,” Arnold was told, his eyes moistening as he relayed the story nearly 15 years after it happened. “It’s still incredibly emotional, but I never really felt like the guys weren’t going to make it.”

An accident in a coal mine 240 feet below that pasture had nine men trapped. It was a story that captivated the nation for nearly 78 hours while rescuers frantically worked to save them. All nine survived, and you can learn details of their work in the mine and their rescue at the visitor center.

Admission is $7 and it is surprisingly large at 4,800 square feet on two floors. Handicapped accessible, the center now is open for the season Tuesday through Saturday, 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. (Arnold said he will accommodate groups any time with advanced notice) and the site is open daily from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m.

Arnold usually does a presentation, and visitors can check out artifacts from a miner’s belt to a mine shaft timber. He has close to 1,000 items in all, a lot still in storage.

The 9-foot, yellow rescue capsule is on display; Arnold calls it “Old Yellow.” He said it had never been used before or since the Quecreek rescue, although it was on standby during the Chilean mining accident in 2010.

The sign for the Sipesville Volunteer Fire Company Station 607, where family members waited during the ordeal two miles away, is here, too.

A television screen continuously runs the Disney movie, “The Pennsylvania Miners’ Story.” A timeline display shows text, photos and artifacts, including a telephone used in the mine.

Outside, visitors can check out the rescue shaft and an air shaft, as well as the oversized drill bit used to drill the openings. A 15th anniversary celebration of the rescue is scheduled for July 26 to 29.

Somerset Historical Center

Arnold encouraged visitors to drive less than a mile down Somerset Pike to the sprawling Somerset Historical Center, “a hidden gem” that houses a reproduction 1770s farmstead and an 1830s farmstead with an authentic log cabin, barn and summer kitchen. Other 19th century facilities are a maple sugar camp, an apple cider press and a covered bridge.

Inside the 14,000-square-foot museum, start with a 12-minute orientation film and then wend through exhibits that explain rural life of Southwest Pennsylvania since native Americans lived here. Thousands of original artifacts from different time periods, from hand tools and horse power through mechanization and tractor, are on display.

“This will compare with any museum,” said director Mark Ware.

It is open 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday and noon to 5 p.m. on Sunday, with admission ranging from $5 to $9. It also offers “living history” weekends and special programs throughout the year, including an annual coopering class on how to make authentic barrels. Its most popular event, Mountain Craft Days, is scheduled for Sept. 8 to 10.

County seat

From the Historical Center, make the five-mile drive to Somerset and a number of dining options on Center Avenue near the Pennsylvania Turnpike. The Summit Diner will catch your eye with its iconic drive-in sign and architecture. Across the street is the Pine Grill, which is popular with locals and where you can get a tasty roast beef sandwich for $8.49; take the mashed potatoes with gravy rather than the fries.

Less than a half mile down Center Avenue is the Chamber of Commerce visitors center, open 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Friday. You can load up on information of fun things to do, including a brochure on festivals throughout the year. “We have a slew of them,” Baker said.

A few blocks further is the historic downtown and the Classical Revival courthouse built between 1904 and 1906. Several monuments are on the grounds.

Be sure to step across Main Street into the Somerset Post Office to view a Depression-era mural, “Farm Scene,” created by Alexander Kostellow in 1941. A small sign explains the details of Kostellow’s life and the mural program.

Just outside downtown is the Laurel Arts Center that has rotating exhibits downstairs and a permanent exhibit upstairs that also houses the Guild of American Papercutters National Museum.

Barns and bridges

Somerset County is home to 10 covered bridges and 19 Pennsylvania barns, and the Chamber of Commerce has maps and guides for driving tours of both. These two-story barns have particular architectural features including a cantilevered overhang and a bank leading up to the second level. A number of them also bear Victorian decorations unique to Somerset, including elaborate, handcrafted wooden stars and other remnants of a Pennsylvania Dutch heritage.

One such barn is at 1049 Bridge St. near Rockwood, a quaint borough about 10 miles southwest of Somerset.

Historic house

Rockwood is worth visiting for its historic Rockwood Mill Shoppes & Opera House. When local resident Judy Pletcher bought the building in 2000, she knew it originally was a lumber mill. But only after she explored the upstairs did she realize it had been an opera house in the early 1900s; some writing on a wall by a minstrel group reads, “We will be back. 1904.”

Pletcher remodeled it and the building is on the National Register of Historic Places. Today, it serves as a venue for community theater and other shows upstairs and a range of shops downstairs. You can get house-made pizza and hand-dipped ice cream, along with locally made crafts from wooden bowls to jewelry.

She also owns two adjacent buildings; one is an antique shop and another is a 1911 grocery store converted to a hostel to accommodate travelers who are bicycling the Great Allegheny Passage just across the Casselman River.

Get active

The GAP is a 140-mile, rails-to-trails system stretching from Pittsburgh to Cumberland, Md., where it connects with the C&O Canal Towpath and extends to Washington, D.C. for a total of 334 miles. It runs through Somerset County for 42 miles; other area trailheads are further south in Confluence and east to Garrett and Meyersdale, where a historic train depot and a caboose can be inspected.

Like Rockwood, the other quaint trail towns also are home to bed and breakfast operations and other amenities that bicyclists and other travelers enjoy.

Active visitors to Somerset County also might check out whitewater rafting at Stonycreek River. If you prefer a full-service stay, check out Seven Springs and Hidden Valley resorts.

Quaint towns

Jennerstown, in the northeast part of the county, offers live theater and racing. For 78 years, the troupe at the Mountain Playhouse has been entertaining in a restored 1805 gristmill. The Jennerstown Speedway was originally built in the 1920s as a half-mile dirt track, and today offers five divisions of racing on its asphalt oval every Saturday night from May to September for $10 admission.

“It’s cheap entertainment for a Saturday night,” Baker said.

Springs is in the southern end of the county and is home to a historical museum, as well as a thriving Amish community that spreads to nearby Salisbury and Meyersdale.

They all nearly stand in the shadow of Mount Davis, Pennsylvania’s tallest point. You can climb an observation tower there, but, because it doesn’t exceed the tree tops, the vistas aren’t very scenic. But you will have reached the highest point in Pennsylvania, and that is no tragedy.

Mirror Life Writer Cherie Hicks is at 949-7030.

Info box:

Somerset County Chamber of Commerce: 601 N. Center Ave., Somerset, (814) 445-6431, www.SomersetPA.net

Flight 93 National Memorial: 6424 Lincoln Highway, Stoystown (if using GPS), (814) 893-6322, www.NPS.gov/flni

Quecreek Mine Rescue Foundation and Visitor Center: 151 Haupt Road, Somerset, (814) 445-4876, www.9for9.org

Somerset Historical Center: 10649 Somerset Pike, Somerset, (814) 445-6077, www.SomersetHistoricalCenter.org

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