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The Blair County Historical Society is resuming its annual historic and architectural bus tour after a two-year hiatus due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
These annual historic and architectural tours began in 2013. The present tour, "Tyrone: Yesterday and Today," is the first to visit Tyrone in Northern Blair County.
Founded in 1854, Tyrone Borough is a more recent borough in the county and has many unique, late 19th-century buildings.
The Tyrone tour will be on Sunday, Sept. 17.
The bus will leave the Blair County Historical Society's headquarters at the Baker Mansion History Museum at 3419 Oak Lane, Altoona, at
1 p.m. and return to Baker Mansion at 4 p.m.
For those residing in the Tyrone area, an added boarding stop will be made after leaving Altoona, at the Tyrone Area Historical Society Museum Train Station at approximately 1:30 p.m.
The tour will include more than 44 historic homes, commercial buildings, churches and historic sites.
Included in the tour will be some of the oldest structures in the borough, dating from the 1850s; homes of the wealthy and of the not-so-wealthy, two former opera houses; movie theatre sites, banks, fraternal society halls and businesses.
A detailed handout brochure will have photos of each stop including many before/after photos. There will be no disembarking from the bus except for the last stop to tour the Tyrone Area Historical Society Museum and train station.
Michael Farrow, tour guide for the Blair County Historical Society's bus tours since 2013, will point out the many, little-known facts about each stop.
Tickets for the bus tour are $45 each. Seating is strictly limited to 28.
Payment may be made through PayPal on the Blair County Historical Society website, www.blairhistory.org/events or you may call 814-942-3916 for reservations and follow-up with a check. Checks should be made payable to the Blair County Historical Society and mailed to BCHS, 3419 Oak Lane, Altoona, PA 16602. Seats will be assigned in order of receipt of payment.