Development of the tanning industry in Philipsburg, PA
The first tan yard in Philipsburg dates to the early period of industrial development in Centre County. The business was located south of the "Philipsburg tannery" archaeological excavation site. In 1817, James McGirk and Jacob Test settled in Philipsburg and purchased the Wrigley property (a.k.a. Rigley) located on Presque Isle Street below Front Street (S.R. 0322) where they established a tavern. In 1822, McGirk was assessed for taxes as owning a tan yard as well as a tavern. The most likely site for McGirk’s tannery would have been at or near the site of the Wrigley barn, which stood on the southwest side of the intersection of Presque Isle Street and S.R. 0322. In 1830, James McGirk and William Kinnear were assessed for a tavern and a tan yard. It seems likely that this was the same tavern and tan yard for which James McGirk had been previously assessed. By 1840, there were no tanneries operating in Philipsburg or Rush Township, and no new tanneries were established until 1870. This date is when the earlier tannery of Philipsburg Tannery Site was erected on the site of the archaeological investigation along Cold Stream.

Integral to the further development and expansion of any tanning operation was the availability and ready access to timber. The tanning process required great amounts of bark , which provided the natural tannic acids necessary for tanning. Logging served two fledgling industries, tanning and the larger timber companies which harvested from the forests surrounding Philipsburg. The material was processed at two steam planning mills located in Philipsburg and eight saw mills located in Rush Township. These saw mills were water powered (or steam powered) and produced boards, shingles, and laths; the planning mills made doors, window sashes, flooring, as well as finished boards. Wood products accounted for more than forty percent of the total dollar value of goods produced in the local community, while the saw mills and planning mills provided at least part time employment for more than a quarter of the local work force.

For many years logging on the western slope of the Allegheny Mountains had been a seasonal business. Timber, primarily white pine, was cut in the late fall and winter. In the spring the logs were transported across the Allegheny crest to saw mills at Lock Haven and Williamsport by a crude but effective system of water transportation called the splash dam. Extension of the Tyrone and Clearfield Railroad to Philipsburg meant that loggers could work the forests year-round and ship directly to local saw mills and planning mills via rail. This, in turn, gave rise to more aggressive logging activities including the construction of small logging railroads that penetrated deep into the virgin hardwood and hemlock forests of the region. By 1870, the vast amount of oak and hemlock bark necessary for the operation of a tannery was readily accessible as a by-product of the logging industry. The Morrisdale Branch of the railroad formed the western boundary of the Philipsburg Tannery. Two of the area’s prominent lumber merchants, Chester Munson and D.W. Holt, were principal partners in the first Philipsburg Tannery.

The First Philipsburg Tannery (Philipsburg Leather Manufacturing Company): 1870-1876
In 1870, a group of local investors, the Trustees of the Philipsburg Leather Manufacturing Company, purchased several pieces of land in and around Lloydstown for the purpose of erecting an industrial tannery. The area had been named after Robert Lloyd, who created the community through the purchase of undeveloped lots from Hardman Philips, brother of the town’s namesake. The town plan had not made accommodations for an industrial component when it was laid out. The construction of the first tannery (on the area of current excavations) in Lloyd's town did not cause dislocation within the residential development. By 1870, many of the lots had not yet been developed.

The first Philipsburg tannery was completed within a few months and by the spring of 1871 it was in full operation. It included all the essential components for the successful operation of an industrial tannery; it had sufficient space to erect the tan yard , and tannery buildings, access to copious amounts of water, accommodations in which to house tannery employees and/or construction workers, space for the storage of bark ,and access to a railroad connection.

Most industrial tanneries erected in the late nineteenth century consisted of a cluster of ramshackle, utilitarian structures, each of which represented a specialized work area, such as the beam house , hide house , leach house, tan yard, and finishing shops. However, the neat rectangular footprint of the first Philipsburg tannery building more closely resembles the more traditional tannery buildings commonly associated with eighteenth and early nineteenth century American tanneries.

There is no evidence indicating what kind of leather was made at the first Philipsburg tannery or the markets in which it was sold. In 1870, most of the tanneries in Centre County were small operations, which processed hides , calfskins , and sheepskins. However, by 1870, the large industrial tanneries had begun to specialize in the manufacture of sole leather .

The tannery was destroyed by fire in 1876 and the property sold shortly thereafter to J.B. Hoyt & Company of New York City for $10,000. According to the Philipsburg Daily Journal newspaper account of the fire in 1876, the tannery included one hundred vats, ten large leaches , two bark mills , and a smokestack supported by guys (guy wires), which collapsed during the fire. Although all of the tannery buildings east of Cherry Street were completely destroyed by the fire, it did not spread to the bark sheds located west of Cherry Street or to workers housing located south and east of the tannery building. Since the leather that had been put to soak in the tanning vats was salvaged, it is likely that the vats themselves were not seriously damaged and may have been reused after the second tannery was erected.

The restoration of the tannery site exemplifies the direction that other industries were to take in the ensuing decade. An eastern leather dealer promptly purchased the ruined tannery property and erected a large modern tannery on the site. At this point, the tannery ceased to be a local business subject to the control of local investors and profits no longer stayed in the local community. Lack of control became more apparent as changes in the organization of the tanning industry began to affect the economic outlook of the entire western slope.

The Second Philipsburg Tannery (Moshannon Tannery): 1876-1893
Shortly after the first Philipsburg tannery was destroyed by fire, the property was purchased by a company of New York leather merchants, who erected a much larger tannery at the Cold Stream site. The second Philipsburg tannery was operated by absentee owners until 1893. It then became part of the United States Leather Company, a corporate monopoly, which controlled the manufacture of sole leather in the United States.

In addition to rebuilding the tannery, J.W. Hoyt & Company purchased several properties in the vicinity of the tannery. Although the purchases increased the amount of real estate associated with the tannery, they did not substantially alter the pattern of industrial land use that was established when the tannery site was initially developed in 1870.

According to the manufacturers’ schedule of the federal census for 1880, the second Philipsburg tannery was capitalized at 170,000 dollars, employed 55 hands at least part time, and operated for twelve months of the year. Raw materials used annually included 6,500 tons of hemlock bark, 750 tons of oak bark, and 33,000 hides from which 66,000 sides of union crop sole leather were produced at a value of $369,000.00. In 1880, there were twelve other tanneries operating in Centre County, but the second Philipsburg tannery was the only large industrial tannery among them.

An article in the Philipsburg Journal dated 1887, described the tannery as having 9,000 tons of hemlock bark stored in four large sheds. The facility used nine thousand cords of wood a year, one-sixth of which arrived by wagon and the remainder by rail.

The Second Philipsburg Tannery (Corporate Period): 1893-1912
On May 1, 1893, the second Philipsburg tannery was "sold" to the Elk Tanning Company for one dollar. Between 1893 and 1912, the United States Leather Company operating through their subsidiary, The Elk Tanning Company, owned the second Philipsburg tannery. The second Philipsburg tannery actually ranked as a relatively modest industrial tannery when compared with the contemporary facilities such as the Wilcox Tannery and the Grant and Horton tannery located in Elk County.

Although a series of relatively minor improvements were undertaken during the 1890s such as the enlargement of the boilers, the construction of several small structures, and the expansion of the hair drying house, there is no evidence to suggest that the Elk Tanning Company undertook any major construction or renovations at the second Philipsburg tannery. During the late nineteenth century, the second Philipsburg tannery was one of the principal industrial establishments in Philipsburg. However, by the 1890’s, the fortunes of the second Philipsburg tannery began to spiral downward.

Although the second Philipsburg tannery could still be considered competitive in 1880, it grew less, and drew to a close by the nineteenth century. By the mid-1890s, production at the tannery site declined and the works were finally abandoned ca.1900. The tannery buildings were apparently taken down shortly after the works were closed in 1903, but the property was not sold by the Elk Tanning Company until 1912.

Certainly, 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, victims of leather production consolidation in a relatively small number of large tanneries. The large tanneries continued to produce, by 1900, the number of Pennsylvanians employed in the state’s tanneries had risen and the amount of sole leather produced in Pennsylvania increased significantly. In short, by 1900, the objective of the corporate monopoly was to control the tanning industry. It can be argued that the lack of space for expansion may have played a role in the decision to abandon the second Philipsburg tannery in favor of the larger works.

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