In a valley with a river – The Alleghany – railroad tracks and a main road – sits a little town –

800 to 1000 souls. Been around for a couple hundred years.

The main street is perhaps a mile long – with side streets and one that goes away and through the hills

known as Barden Brook- you can go for miles on that road into the hills and countryside.

Situated maybe 4 or 5 miles to the NYS border and over the hill fourteen miles away in Bradford-

home to Pennsoil-Kendall and nearby Quakerstate.

Here the oil boom in the 1800s fueled the rich along with oil derricks.
To the NW beyond the NYS lines are Portville Olean and Alleghany.

Here below is an early picture of my hometown in the 1800s – ELDRED, PA.

Dirt street on the main street and up on the far left – many years after this picture was taken and the streets were paved – is where I was raised.

The house is not in this picture but many buildings here I remember and some are still there!

The trees up there were huge as I was growing up!

The wooden sidewalks were replaced with concrete and I would rollerskate on them.

Growing up on North Main Street – we had a lot of kids there back then and would play –

KICK THE CAN! I knew them all and we would walk to school at the other end of the main street.

We had a bowling alley – a Theater – a grocery store – a gas station – a ballpark with lights –

and tennis and basketball courts.

A barbershop – a tastee-freeze, A doctor and a dentist’s office as well as the Odd Fellows.

A fire department – a H.S. and elementary combined.

A furniture store and several other stores that sold clothes and other things.

A drugstore and bank and many bars and a diner!

You knew everyone and they knew you!

We had a ten o’clock curfew – I think it is still that way today!

We would sled ride on the hills in winter – and in summer pick blueberries.

Sleeping outside on porches – playing tackle football at the park –

watching the baseball teams play and the Town Team.

I think it was like Mayberry and Stand By Me all wrapped up in one!

Today – a lot of that way of life is gone along with the stores – bowling alleys – theaters –

There still is a bank – and an elementary school and the ballpark is still there.

What is now there is a WWII museum – a huge one that tour buses come to see!

This is but a small fraction of what it is today – a tank bursting out the wall of the original building-

Beyond this are multiple areas and buildings – all hosing WWII artifacts and history –

This little town is big in the eyes of this museum.

Worth a trip to just tour it!

This was “MY TOWN” growing up!

Small town – small population – but BIG in what is offered here in the WWII Museum!

Thanks for reading PAPA’S WORLD – my site: livinglifedoingitmyway.blog