Scotia was an American village that was located in Patton Township,

Centre County Centre County is a county in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. As of the 2020 census, the population was 158,172. Its county seat is Bellefonte. Centre County comprises the State College, PA Metropolitan Statistical Area. History The lands ...

Pennsylvania Pennsylvania (; ( Pennsylvania Dutch: )), officially the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, is a state spanning the Mid-Atlantic, Northeastern, Appalachian, and Great Lakes regions of the United States. It borders Delaware to its southeast, ...

, at . Although the community was called Scotia, the name of the local post office was Benore. (''Ben'' is Gaelic for "mountain f but further etymology of the name is unknown.)

History

This village got its start when

Andrew Carnegie Andrew Carnegie (, ; November 25, 1835August 11, 1919) was a Scottish-American industrialist and philanthropist. Carnegie led the expansion of the American steel industry in the late 19th century and became one of the richest Americans i ...

, through the Edgar Thomson Steel Company, leased large tracts of township land that had iron ore. Small-scale mining had taken place here since the late-eighteenth century; Carnegie organized a larger effort to exploit the deposits, beginning in 1880. Ore was removed from a broad open pit, washed to separate it from clay, and loaded onto railcars. The Pennsylvania Railroad extended its Fairbrook Branch to the village in 1881 and began hauling the ore to steel mills in

Pittsburgh Pittsburgh ( ) is a city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, United States, and the county seat of Allegheny County. It is the most populous city in both Allegheny County and Western Pennsylvania, the second-most populous city in Pennsylva ...

. There was also an extensive narrow-gauge railroad in the pits to haul ore to the washer, and several artesian wells and a reservoir to supply water for ore washing. Carnegie sold the ore deposits to the Bellefonte Furnace Company in 1899, feeling that they were no longer economical to work and ship to Pittsburgh. Immediately after the sale, the

Bellefonte Central Railroad The Bellefonte Central Railroad was a shortline connecting Bellefonte and State College, Pennsylvania. Constructed in the late 19th century to haul local iron ore to furnaces in the Bellefonte region, it later hauled freight traffic to Penn St ...

built a new branch from Graysdale to Scotia, allowing the ore to be shipped directly to the company's furnaces rather than take a roundabout route on the PRR. After the mining halted circa 1913, all of the assets of the Bellefonte Furnace Company were sold at foreclosure in 1914. The Bellefonte Central then abandoned its line to Scotia in 1915, and the PRR in 1927. The village had already been vacated in 1922 or 1923. There was a brief attempt to revive mining at Scotia during

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing ...

when the Bellefonte Central received Reconstruction Finance Corporation money to build a new branch from Alto to Scotia to serve the new facilities; however, the mine was only briefly in operation before the

cessation of hostilities A ceasefire (also known as a truce or armistice), also spelled cease fire (the antonym of 'open fire'), is a temporary stoppage of a war in which each side agrees with the other to suspend aggressive actions. Ceasefires may be between state act ...

, and soon ceased permanently. The area is now encompassed by

Pennsylvania State Game Lands The Pennsylvania State Game Lands (SGL) are lands managed by the Pennsylvania Game Commission (PGC) for hunting, trapping, and fishing. These lands, often not usable for farming or development, are donated to the PGC or purchased by the PGC with hun ...

No. 176. h

Gallery

Scotia, Patton TWP, Centre County, PA.jpg, Poe Valley State Park, Centre County, Pennsylvania (near Scotia)

References

{{Authority control Ghost towns in Pennsylvania Geography of Centre County, Pennsylvania