Broadford, or Broad Ford, is an unincorporated community in Connellsville Township,

Fayette County, Pennsylvania Fayette County is a county in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. It is located in southwestern Pennsylvania, adjacent to Maryland and West Virginia. As of the 2020 census, the population was 128,804. Its county seat is Uniontown. The county wa ...

, southeast of

Pittsburgh Pittsburgh ( ) is a city in Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, United States, and its county seat. It is the List of municipalities in Pennsylvania#Municipalities, second-most populous city in Pennsylvania (after Philadelphia) and the List of Un ...

in the United States. Broadford is on the

Youghiogheny River The Youghiogheny River ( ), or the Yough ( ) for short, is a U.S. Geological Survey. National Hydrography Dataset high-resolution flowline dataThe National Map accessed August 15, 2011 tributary of the Monongahela River in West Virginia, Maryla ...

downstream from Connellsville. Galley Run, a tributary to the Youghiogheny River, joins here.

History

Broadford was formerly the site of an A. Overholt and Company Distillery, maker of

Old Overholt Old Overholt is America's oldest continually maintained brand of whiskey. It was founded in West Overton, Pennsylvania, in 1810. Old Overholt is a rye whiskey distilled by A. Overholt & Co., currently a subsidiary of Suntory Global Spirits, whic ...

rye whiskey Rye whiskey can refer to two different, but related, types of whiskey: * American rye whiskey, which is similar to bourbon whiskey, but must be distilled from at least 51 percent rye grain * Canadian whisky, which is often referred to as (and of ...

once run by Pittsburgh industrialist H. Clay Frick. (The other was at

West Overton, Pennsylvania West Overton is a historic village located approximately southeast of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Pittsburgh, in East Huntingdon Township, Westmoreland County, Pennsylvania, East Huntingdon Township, Westmoreland County, Pennsylvania, Westmoreland ...

.) Ruins and some extant buildings are present in the town.Michael Cope
"Old Overholt Distillery burns: Seven fire companies respond."
''The Daily Courier''. October 15, 2004. Retrieved December 10, 2010. Broadford was also once the junction of the Pittsburgh & Connellsville Railroad which ran along the Youghiogheny and the Mount Pleasant & Broad Ford Railroad spur to Mount Pleasant (both railroads later part of B&O, now

CSX CSX Transportation , known colloquially as simply CSX, is a Railroad classes, Class I freight railroad company operating in the Eastern United States and the Canadian provinces of Ontario and Quebec. Operating about 21,000 route miles () of trac ...

). Today,

Amtrak The National Railroad Passenger Corporation, Trade name, doing business as Amtrak (; ), is the national Passenger train, passenger railroad company of the United States. It operates intercity rail service in 46 of the 48 contiguous United Stat ...

's '' Capitol Limited'' operates through Broadford, before stopping in Connellsville. The town experienced a coal mining and coke production boom in the early 20th century but, by the middle of the century, the distillery, which had survived

Prohibition Prohibition is the act or practice of forbidding something by law; more particularly the term refers to the banning of the manufacture, storage (whether in barrels or in bottles), transportation, sale, possession, and consumption of alcoholic b ...

distilling medical spirits, was the only major employer. National Distillers Products Corporation, which acquired the distillery in 1933, later shut it down and moved Old Overholt production to

Cincinnati, Ohio Cincinnati ( ; colloquially nicknamed Cincy) is a city in Hamilton County, Ohio, United States, and its county seat. Settled in 1788, the city is located on the northern side of the confluence of the Licking River (Kentucky), Licking and Ohio Ri ...

References

External links

Broad Ford Aerial History
with photos of the Overholt distillery

formerly of Broad Ford {{authority control Unincorporated communities in Pennsylvania Pittsburgh metropolitan area Unincorporated communities in Fayette County, Pennsylvania