Altoona, Pennsylvania

Altoona is a city in Blair County, Pennsylvania. It is the principal city of the Altoona Metropolitan Statistical Area (MSA). The population was 43,963 at the time of the 2020 Census, making it the eighteenth most populous city in Pennsylvania. The Altoona MSA includes all of Blair County and was recorded as having a population of 122,822 at the 2020 Census, around 100,000 of whom live within a radius of the Altoona city center according to U.S. Census ZIP Code population data. This includes the adjacent boroughs of Hollidaysburg and Duncansville, adjacent townships of Logan, Allegheny, Blair, Frankstown, Antis, and Tyrone, as well as nearby boroughs of Bellwood and Newry.

Having grown around the railroad industry, the city has worked to recover from industrial decline and urban decentralization experienced in recent decades. The city is home to the Altoona Curve baseball team of the Eastern League, which is the AA affiliate of the Pittsburgh Pirates Major League Baseball team. The Altoona Symphony Orchestra has called Altoona home since 1928. Prominent landmarks include the Horseshoe Curve, the Railroaders Memorial Museum, the Juniata Shops of the Altoona Works, the Mishler Theatre, the Cathedral of the Blessed Sacrament, and the Jaffa Shrine Center.

History

Altoona was founded by the Pennsylvania Railroad (PRR) in 1849 as the site for a shop and maintenance complex. Altoona was incorporated as a borough on February 6, 1854, and as a city under legislation approved on April 3, 1867, and February 8, 1868.

Altoona

One explanation of the city's name is that the word "Altoona" is a derivative of the Latin word ''altus'', meaning "high".

That explanation is contradicted by Pennsylvania Place Names. Although Altoona, in Blair County, is popularly known as "the Mountain City", its name has no direct or indirect etymological relation to the Latin adjective altus, signifying "elevated, lofty." Two very different explanations of the origin of the name are current. The one which seems to be the most likely and reasonable runs as follows: "The locomotive engineer who ran the first train into Altoona in 1851 was Robert Steele, who died several years ago, aged nearly 90 years. He was then the oldest continuous resident of the city. He was much respected and had long been one of the private pensioners of Andrew Carnegie. Mr. Steele is authority for the statement that Col. Beverly Mayer, of Columbia, Pennsylvania, who, as a civil engineer of what was then the Pennsylvania Central Railway, had laid out the tracks in the yards of the newly projected city, named the place Altoona after the city of Altona in Danish Holstein, which became part of Germany in 1864.

The German Altona, which is today a district of Hamburg, lies on the right bank of the Elbe, immediately west of Hamburg city center, and is an important railway and manufacturing center with a population of nearly 200,000. The etymological derivation of the name Altona is not known with certainty. Linguistic research indicates that the name of German Altona is probably based on a former tributary of the Elbe river called ''Altenawe'' or ''Altenah'' (meaning ''old meadow''), which is shown in the 1568 map of the Elbe river by Melchior Lorichs and in the 1652 maps by Johannes Mejer (published by Caspar Danckwarth).

In 1849, David Robinson sold his farm to Archibald Wright of Philadelphia, who transferred the property to his son, John A. Wright, who laid it out in building lots, became one of the founders of Altoona, and was responsible for the naming of the town. According to his own statement, he had spent considerable time in the Cherokee country of Georgia, where he had been especially attracted by the beautiful name of Allatoona, which he had bestowed upon the new town in the belief that it was a Cherokee word meaning "the high lands of great worth." In the Cherokee language there is a word eladuni, which means "high lands", or "where it is high"; but to a Cherokee, Allatoona and eladuni are so different that the former could hardly be derived from the latter.

An older history dated 1883 favored the Cherokee derivation, stating that "Its name is not derived from the Latin word altus nor from the French word alto, as has frequently been asserted and published, but from the beautiful, liquid, and expressive Cherokee word Allatoona. This is on the authority of the person who bestowed the name, Mr. Wright, of Philadelphia, who was long a resident of the Cherokee country in Georgia, and an admirer of the musical names of that Indian language."

For 60 days in 2011, the city officially changed its name to "POM Wonderful Presents: The Greatest Movie Ever Sold" in exchange for $25,000 as part of a marketing gimmick for the movie of the same name.

Growth

In late September 1862, Altoona was home to the War Governors' Conference which brought together 13 governors of Union states. This body gave early approval to the Emancipation Proclamation. The town grew rapidly in the late 19th century, its population approximately 2,000 in 1854, 10,000 in 1870, and 20,000 in 1880. The demand for locomotives during the Civil War stimulated much of this growth, and by the later years of the war, Altoona was known as a valuable city for the North. Altoona was also the site of the first Interstate Commission meeting to create and design the Gettysburg National Cemetery following the devastating Battle of Gettysburg. The centrality and convenience of the town's rail transportation brought these two important gatherings to the city during the war.

Horseshoe Curve

Horseshoe Curve, a curved section of track built by the PRR, has become a tourist attraction and National Historic Landmark.

The curve was built to help trains cross the Allegheny Ridge, a barrier to westward trade. Construction of the Erie Canal in New York 20 years earlier had diverted much port traffic from Philadelphia to New York City, feeding that city's commercial dominance. Because the curve was an industrial link to the western United States, Horseshoe Curve was a primary target of eight Nazi saboteurs who had landed during World War II from U-boats of Nazi Germany's ''Kriegsmarine'' during Operation Pastorius.

At its peak in the early 20th century, PRR's Altoona Works complex employed about 15,000 people and covered three miles (5 km) in length, of yards and of indoor workshop floor space in 122 buildings. The PRR built 7,873 of its own locomotives at the Works, the last in 1946. PRR shaped the city, creating the city's fire departments and moving the hospital to a site nearer to the shop's gates. Today, the fire department employs 65 people and is the largest career department between Harrisburg and Pittsburgh. PRR sponsored a city band and constructed Cricket Field (a sports complex). In 1853, the PRR built the Mechanic's Library, the first industrial library in the nation which exists today as the Altoona Area Public Library. With the decline in railroad demand after World War II, things began to decline. Many treasures of the city's history disappeared, including the Logan House Hotel and railroad shops.

Horseshoe Curve remains a popular tourist attraction. There is a funicular that takes visitors to a viewing area, or it can be reached by climbing 194 steps.

Tornado

On May 22, 1949, at about 6 pm, a tornado moved through the southern part of Altoona. According to the ''Altoona Mirror,'' the tornado touched down near Sugar Run Road in the Canan Station area of Allegheny Township and cut a swath of destruction through the southwestern portion of Altoona. Trees over a foot in diameter were "twisted apart" and several houses were unroofed, and garages were demolished in the Canan Station and Sugar Run areas. Along 58th Street large trees were uprooted, one of them leaving a seven-foot hole in the ground. Also on 58th Street, the roof was torn off a restaurant, as was its brand-new neon sign, and a large billboard was pushed to the ground. Houses lost shingles and there was extensive tree damage in the Eldorado and Llyswen sections of town. Huge trees were blown down in Highland Park. The Adams School, located near the end of the tornado's path at 6th Avenue and 24th street, had damage to its slate roof and several windows were blown out.

Another tornado touched down in Morrisons Cove, south of Altoona. Houses were unroofed and barns were destroyed in the Henrietta and Millerstown area. A 17-year-old girl was injured in Henrietta. The damage done by these tornadoes is consistent with winds of .

A map made by Dr. Ted Fujita in 1974 of all of the tornadoes in the U.S. between 1930 and 1974 shows these two tornadoes mapped as F1 tornadoes on the Fujita Scale.

Current

Altoona is one of the dual seats of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Altoona–Johnstown. The Cathedral of the Blessed Sacrament was made a cathedral and rechristened from St. John's Church in 1851.

The ''Altoona Mirror'' newspaper, founded in 1876 by Harry Slep, is Altoona's oldest media outlet. Today, the newspaper has a daily circulation of 32,000 and a Sunday circulation of 39,000. Approximately 13,000 people read the online edition of the newspaper each day.

Altoona is home to the world's oldest wooden roller coaster, the Leap-The-Dips, located in Lakemont Park.

Geography

Altoona lies at the base of Brush Mountain within Logan Valley and Pleasant Valley. According to the United States Census Bureau, the city has a total area of , all land. Altoona is situated in the Allegheny Mountains.

Climate

Under the Köppen climate classification, Altoona falls within either a hot-summer humid continental climate (''Dfa'') if the isotherm is used or a humid subtropical climate (''Cfa'') if the isotherm is used. Summers are hot and winters are moderately cold with wide variations in temperature. The monthly daily average temperature ranges from in January to in July, although extremes in temperature have ranged from in 1904 to in 2011. Total precipitation is greatest in September and least in February.

City neighborhoods

The main sections of Altoona are the Downtown, Center City, Logantown, Fairview, Juniata, Wehnwood, Calvert Hills, 5th Ward, Westmont, Eldorado, East End, Dutch Hill, Pleasant Valley, Hileman Heights, 6th Ward, Mansion Park, Llyswen, Garden Heights, and Highland Park. Some significant neighborhoods are Little Italy, Gospel Hill, Toy Town, Columbia Park, Knickerbockers, and Curtin. Some areas within Logan Township, outside the city limits but still considered sections of Altoona, are Lakemont, Greenwood, Bellmeade, Westfall, Newburg, and Red Hill. Many of the older districts consist of a mix of rowhomes and individual homes, which were a common building style in railroad towns so-as to provide for worker and manager housing, respectively.

Downtown

The downtown is the cultural and commercial center of Altoona and straddles the famous railroads. As is typical to a traditional city layout, the downtown is centrally located and contains significant development in all directions. Much of the area is listed on the National Register of Historic Places as the Downtown Altoona Historic District. Popular landmarks include the Mishler Theatre, the Penn Alto Building (formerly the Penn Alto Hotel), the Gable's Building, City Hall, the Cathedral of the Blessed Sacrament, and Eleventh Avenue itself.

Altoona has several notable churches, including the Cathedral of the Blessed Sacrament at the corner of 13th Street and 13th Avenue, the building on the corner of 12th Street and 14th Avenue that used to house the First Presbyterian Church, and the First Lutheran Church on the corner of 14th Street and 12th Avenue. The Station Medical Center, formerly known as the Station Mall, was a downtown mall built during the 1970s in place of many old railroad shops. The downtown contains most of what is known as Altoona's Little Italy district.

Because of the geography of the area, exact or natural boundaries for Downtown are not present. Therefore, Downtown is generally defined by what the city has zoned as Central Business: between 13th Avenue and the PRR Expressway, and from 7th Street to 16th Street. However, it is common for areas within Logantown and Center City to be expressed locally as "downtown".

The Texas Hot Dog was originally created in downtown Altoona in 1918, although the Paterson, New Jersey

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