Settlement and Early Expansion and Industry
In the late seventeenth century, Anglo-European settlers moved westward from the Delaware River, following established trails and settling small farming communities throughout the southern tier of Pennsylvania counties. Still, early settlers continued to avoid the mountainous regions in the north central part of the state; therefore, Philipsburg was settled later than many other portions of Pennsylvania.

Settlement at Philipsburg: 1796-1863
Philipsburg has no colonial period history because the land around Philipsburg was not settled until 1796 when Henry Philips, an English businessman, came to this area. He took up more than 36,000 acres of unsettled land on the western slope of the Alleghenies in Centre, Clearfield, and Cambria Counties known as the Philipsburg Estate. Despite incentives such as free land for anyone who settled at Philipsburg, the town developed very slowly. When Henry Philips died in 1799, Philipsburg was a small frontier settlement consisting of a grist mill, saw mills, a tavern, and a few houses. It was not until the 1860’s that Philipsburg and Rush Township experienced a period of sustained growth and development.

By 1830, the settlement was made up of a few framed houses (constructed of logs) and only one stone dwelling. Besides the milling, the major business of the town in the early nineteenth century appears to have been the commercial establishments and public accommodations that were clustered at the center of town along Front Street. These businesses apparently catered to a transient trade of teamsters and travelers who used the turnpike roads that converged at Philipsburg. During the mid-nineteenth century, Philipsburg continued to serve as a crossroads village and the principle town center of a sparsely populated hinterland.

Upon the death of Henry Philips, two of his younger brothers assumed control of the estate. However, they died soon after and the third and youngest of the brothers, Hardman Philips, assumed control of the family’s Pennsylvania land holdings in 1813. Hardman Philips envisioned Philipsburg as an industrial plantation. When he arrived in Philipsburg there were already two saw mills and a grist mill located on Cold Stream. In 1817 he erected a forge on Cold Stream opposite the late-eighteenth-century mill complex. Three years later he erected a foundry near the saw mill, which had been erected in 1811. In 1821, he established a screw factory on the Moshannon Creek at Point Lookout, and in 1830 he erected a new foundry on the Moshannon Creek (below Cold Stream) on the west side of the Turnpike Road.

Despite the area’s wealth in natural resources, Hardman Philips’ early industrial development did not prosper. The major problem was the lack of dependable transportation. Since the early nineteenth century, Philipsburg had been a crossroads community. Although they were called "turnpikes", the existing roads were steep, often impassable, and hardly distinguishable from the Native American trails that they closely followed. The economic isolation of Philipsburg was continued in the mid-nineteenth century when both the Pennsylvania Canal and the Pennsylvania Railroad chose southern routes to Pittsburgh. Local industries were forced to use wagons and other primitive forms of transportation to move their products over the Allegheny crest. Philipsburg’s businessmen simply could not compete successfully in the new industrial economy serviced by networks of canals and railroads. The pioneer entrepreneurs at Philipsburg were acutely aware that the development of industry and commerce depended on gaining access to the canals and the railroads. As early as the mid-1830s, Hardman Philips campaigned unsuccessfully for the construction of a railroad connecting Philipsburg with the Juniata Canal. By 1844, discouraged by the failure of his various business ventures and by his unsuccessful attempts to procure a railroad link to Philipsburg, Hardman Philips decided to return to England.

Industrial Expansion: 1863-1876
The principal development in Philipsburg’s cultural landscape during this period was the presence of the Tyrone and Clearfield Railroad, which ran along Moshannon Creek, west of S.R. 0322. It was not until 1863 that Philipsburg was finally connected with the main line of the Pennsylvania Railroad via the Tyrone and Clearfield Railroad, which ran through Philipsburg. Railroad facilities in the town included not only depot facilities, but also a large engine house on Moshannon Creek at the foot of Spruce Street. The railroad later formed the western boundary of the tannery property, with a siding that extended southeastward across the tannery property into the main block of tannery buildings.

The completion of the railroad to Philipsburg marked the beginning of two decades of growth and development. During this period, the economy of Philipsburg and Rush Township was based primarily on the extraction of the area’s natural resources, timber and coal. Other manufacturers included millers, a brick maker, and blacksmiths. Coal mining was a relatively new industry in the Moshannon Valley, which developed through the construction of the railroad. Nearly half the workforce of Philipsburg and Rush Township was employed in the coal mines for at least part of the year. The extension of the railroad to Philipsburg meant loggers could work the forests year-round and ship directly to the mills via rail. .

During the decade following construction of the railroad, Philipsburg developed slowly within the context of the original town plan. By 1875, the downtown business district of Philipsburg did not extended beyond the bounds of historic town development documented in 1813. More than a dozen blocks of town land situated north of Presque Isle Street were completely undeveloped, and at least a dozen others were laid out in town lots but were only partially developed. In 1865, Philipsburg was incorporated as a borough.

The population of Philipsburg nearly doubled between 1860 and 1870, although there was no evidence of over-crowding, as most town blocks retained at least some open space. It appears that Philipsburg’s population growth resulted in the creation of new housing developments, rather than more intensive development of unoccupied town lots.

The period of industrial expansion ended in 1876 when the first Philipsburg tannery burned. The property was purchased by eastern leather interests who erected a larger, more modern tannery.

1876-1920
Between 1876 and 1920, Philipsburg continued to develop within the parameters of the original town plan. Most of the commercial buildings presently standing in the downtown business district were built during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. During this period, a number of modern conveniences were introduced in Philipsburg, including street lights, electricity, a public water supply, telephones, and a subscription heat system, and the automobile.

By 1880, coal mining was no longer a major factor in the local economy, but timber had grown in importance, employing forty percent of the towns workforce. During the 1890’s the tanneries began to purchase large tracts of hemlock forest, to protect their sources of bark. Once the tanneries harvested the bark , the stripped logs were sold to the mills. The development of the Central Pennsylvania Lumber Company in 1903 effectively created a monopoly to harvest forests owned by the United States Leather Company. This corporate monopoly controlled the manufacture of sole leather in Pennsylvania.

During the late nineteenth century, the second Philipsburg tannery was one of the principal industrial establishments in Philipsburg. Approximately one-tenth of the work force of the town was employed at the tannery. Despite the apparent success of the second tannery, it was closed in ca. 1900, a victim of market forces beyond local control. The fate of the second Philipsburg tannery was not unique, between 1890 and 1900 more than one-third of the tanneries in Pennsylvania were closed. By 1900, the goal of the controlling corporate monopoly was to consolidate the production of leather to a small number of large tanneries. It is possible that the lack of space to expand the tanning operation played a role in the decision to abandon the second Philipsburg tannery.

After 1900, if the local economy was not declining, it had certainly stopped expanding. By 1920, most of the logging ceased in many sections of the western slope, and those tanneries, which depended on these woodland tracts for their supply of tanning materials, were forced to close as bark supplies dwindled. Wages fell, unemployment increased, and people began to leave the region in increasing numbers to find employment elsewhere.

The Great Depression of the 1930s perpetuated the local economic failures. Lasting recovery did not begin in Philipsburg until the 1990’s, when the town became a desirable residential alternative to the crowded southeastern section Centre County. Development of the tourist industry has also played a role in the resurgence of Philipsburg which serves as a focal point for the recreation areas which have been developed on state lands across on western slope of the Alleghenies.

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