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Altoona, Pennslyvania Vacations, Luxury Hotels and Altoona Travel Packages

 
Altoona City Photo

We invite you to experience the beauty of The Alleghenies in Central Pennsylvania. All four seasons offer great outdoor activities; fascinating historical landmarks and museums; railroad attractions; fun filled, free admission amusement parks; shopping centers and quaint specialty shops; a spectacular AA baseball park and more. The city of Altoona and the charming towns that surround it are full of hospitality filled locally owned and operated restaurants offering the best tastes of The Alleghenies.

Altoona is a city in Blair County, Pennsylvania. The Altoona MSA includes all of Blair County and had an estimated population of 125,527 in 2007.

Having grown around the railroad industry, the city is currently working to recover against industrial decline and urban decentralization over the past several decades. The city is home to the Altoona Curve baseball team of the Double A Eastern League, which is the Double A affiliate of the Pittsburgh Pirates. It also houses the 75+ year-old Altoona Symphony Orchestra,[1] under the direction of Teresa Cheung. Prominent landmarks include the Horseshoe Curve, the Railroaders Memorial Museum, the Mishler Theatre, the Cathedral of the Most Blessed Sacrament, and the Jaffa Mosque.

Altoona is also the home of the Sheetz headquarters. Sheetz is one of the largest convenience store and gas station chains in the country, with stores in Pennsylvania, Maryland, Ohio, West Virginia, Virginia, and North Carolina. Because of this, many Sheetz stores are located in and around Altoona.

Altoona History

A major railroad town, Altoona was founded by the Pennsylvania Railroad in 1849 as the site for a shop 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. 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. It was considered by Confederate General Robert E. Lee as a target during the Army of Northern Virginia's mid-1863 entry into Pennsylvania, before being repelled at the Battle of Gettysburg. Also notable is the Union's Loyal War Governors' Conference, held at Altoona's Logan House Hotel.

The Horseshoe Curve, a famous curved section of track owned by the Pennsylvania Railroad, has become a tourist attraction and National Historic Landmark. The Curve was used to raise trains to a sufficient altitude to cross the Allegheny Ridge to the west, beyond which was the steel town of Pittsburgh and the rest of the western United States. Because it was the industrial link to the western U.S., the Horseshoe Curve was a primary target of eight Nazi saboteurs who had infiltrated the United States during World War II (1942) by being dropped off by Kriegsmarine U-Boats.

 
Map of Altoona and some surrounding areasIn the early 20th century, the Railroad's Altoona Works complex employed, at its peak, approximately 15,000 people and covered three miles (5 km) in length, 218 acres (880,000 m²) of yards and 37 acres (150,000 m²) of indoor workshop floor space in 122 buildings. The Pennsylvania Railroad built many of its own locomotives at the Works, some 7,873 in all, the last being constructed in 1946.

The Railroad had a significant influence on the city, creating the city's fire departments and relocating the hospital to a site nearer to the shop's gates. Today, the fire department employs 65 personnel and is the largest career department between Harrisburg and Pittsburgh, PA.[3] The railroad sponsored a city band and constructed Cricket Field (a sports complex). In 1853, the Railroad built the Mechanic's Library, the first industrial library in the nation which exists today as the Altoona Public Library.[4] With the decline in railroad demand after World War II, things began to decline steadily afterwards, with most of the plant is now gone. Many of the historic treasures of the city's history have also disappeared, including the aforementioned Logan House Hotel.

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

The Altoona Mirror newspaper,[5] 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.

Today, Altoona serves as the corporate home to Sheetz, a rapidly growing convenience store chain in the United States. It now has over 330 locations throughout Pennsylvania, Virginia, Maryland, West Virginia, Ohio and North Carolina.

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

City Sections

The main sections of Altoona are the Downtown, Dutch Hill area, East end, the Pleasant Valley region, the Plank Road Shopping district, Juniata, Logantown, Fairview, Eldorado, The Fifth Ward, and the Industrial Park. 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.

Altoona Downtown

The Downtown is the cultural and commercial center of Altoona and straddles the famous railroads. Much of the downtown area is listed in the national registry of historic places.[6] Popular landmarks include the Mishler Theatre, the Penn Alto building (formerly the Penn Alto Hotel), the Gable's Building, City Hall, the Cathedral, the Jaffa Mosque, and Eleventh Avenue itself.

Unlike most larger cities, the exact boundaries of the downtown are not specifically defined, due to the lack of natural boundaries. Residents tend to conservatively define the boundaries of the downtown as including the urban/commercial core, where as more official sources define it as including all high and middle-density zoning. The downtown's borders are generally defined by 6th Avenue to 16th Avenue (and Willow Avenue in the "Logantown" section) along the east and west; and from 4th Street to 18th Street along the north and south. The downtown is sometimes considered to extend as far as 24th Street and beyond. And the eastern boundary is said by some to extend from 11th street to 19th street up to 3rd avenue.

As is typical to a traditional city layout, the downtown is centrally located and contains significant development in all directions from the downtown. The commercial core of the downtown includes many multistory residential, commercial, and mixed-use facilities designed in at the turn-of-the-century in a mix of Victorian, Edwardian Baroque, and Neo-Romanesque styles. This style features high ceilings, resulting in taller buildings than is typical for the number of floors. The high ceilings are typically made of either tin or plaster, although sometimes a drop ceiling is utilized.

Individual homes originally provided housing to managers and executives of the Pennsylvania Railroad and can be best recognized by the structural similarities to Victorian or Edwardian mansions, but built very narrow and tall with little to no space between the two structures. These are sometimes used as double or triple family apartments or even converted into commercial space. Outside of the commercial core is a mosaic of multistory commercial structures, mixed use facilities, single story commercial structures, apartment buildings, multi-unit housing, and single-family homes.

Downtown Altoona is notable for having several churches, such as the Cathedral of the Most Blessed Sacrament at the corner of 13th Street and 13th Avenue, the Presbyterian church on the corner of 12th Street and 14th Avenue, 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's known as Altoona's Little Italy district.

As has been typical of many rust belt cities, the economic downturn of the railroad resulted in the closure of many of the downtown's landmark stores and industries; and the simultaneous rise in prominence of the automobile shifted commercial development to the suburbs. However, through recent revitalization efforts, Altoona's downtown maintains a significant level of economic vitality and hosts few office and residential vacancies.[citation needed] The downtown maintains a significant focus on pedestrian-oriented development, as evidenced by the presence of more pedestrian bridges and underpasses across the railroad tracks (connecting the two parts of Downtown) than automobile crossings.

Penn State Altoona has bought several downtown buildings, including the former Playhouse Theater building, the six-story Penn Furniture building, and the former WRTA building. The University provides a flow of resources into the downtown, aiding in revitalization efforts. As an example of the university's value to the downtown's economy, the installation of the Blue Lot near the Wolf Court Building has improved the economic attraction of downtown by offering up to three hours of free parking. A bike path connecting the Campus to Downtown Altoona has been proposed.

One unique little known fact is that the Texas Hot Dog was originally created in downtown Altoona in 1918, although the Paterson, New Jersey Texas Hot Dog location, which opened in 1924, is more famous.

Dutch Hill and Pleasant Valley
The Dutch Hill area is near the main school campus that straddles the edge of the downtown, and is bounded by 6th Avenue and I-99 on the east and west, and 25th Street and Kettle Street to the north and south. From Walton Avenue to I-99, this area is also known as the Pleasant Valley region and includes a part of the Little Italy district. The Dutch Hill district contains an abundance of historic neighborhoods and traditional "corner markets". With the construction of the Altoona Area Junior High School, the lines between the school zone of Dutch Hill and the Downtown are becoming increasingly blurred, because the main Altoona Area School District campus extends all the way up to 4th avenue, which is not a part of the downtown. However, some tourism-oriented sources include the lower Dutch Hill region up to 3rd Avenue from 11th Street to 19th Street as part of the downtown because of its historic nature as a part of the earliest settled region of Altoona.

Fairview
The line between Downtown and Fairview is a bit blurred, since some elements of Fairview's low-density residential nature can be seen as low as 13th Avenue, and some elements of the medium to high density nature of the Downtown as far up as 18th Avenue. At times, you see some single unit houses on 13th through 16th Avenues, and 16th through 18th Streets, amongst much taller office, retail, and apartment buildings. Many of the houses in the part of downtown near Fairview and lower Fairview are the middle-density mansions originally owned by managers and executives of the Pennsylvania Railroad. The most striking example of this is the Penn Alto residential hotel on the corner of 13th Avenue and 12th Street, which has two single-unit houses next to it. Conversely, there are a few multistory residential and commercial buildings on 17th Avenue. Fairview could be best described as the urban neighborhoods that one would expect to find just outside of a downtown. One of the sections of the downtown is called "Lower Fairview" due to its transitionary nature.

Industrial
The Industrial section is near Margaret Avenue, Broad Avenue, and Beale Avenues, and spans the area between 17th Street and 37th Street. Some of the Industrial section is also considered part of the downtown. It is named that because of its history of manufacturing facilities, such as Boyer Candies. Although many factories exist here, and this is the main industrial region, the name can be deceiving, as there is a lot of industry near the railroads in the downtown, Logantown, Eldorado, and Juniata sections of Altoona.

Eldorado
Eldorado, pronounced locally, El-doe-ray-doe, is the southern section of Altoona, south of Logan Boulevard and west of 6th Avenue. The Sheetz Headquarters is located in this area. At one time, this section was also known as the "West End"; and strangely, northern Altoona is known as the "East End".[citation needed] This is probably due to the fact that trains leaving the north end of town head east towards Philadelphia while trains leaving the south end of town head west towards Pittsburgh. Some parts of Eldorado are actually outside of incorporated Altoona and located in Allegheny Township.

Logantown
Logantown is the area just north of the Downtown, even including some parts of the Downtown, this is where the Altoona Hospital, the tallest building in Altoona, is located. However, some sources also indicate that the hospital is located in downtown, indicating that 4th Street is the border between the two neighborhoods. 4th street between Chestnut and Willow Avenues includes a mixture of residential and commercial uses.

Juniata
Juniata was once its own city, but was incorporated into Altoona in the late 1800s. This background is the reasoning behind the community's change in streetnames as well as the presence of its own commercial district. The commercial district, sometimes nicknamed "downtown Juniata", is much like the commercial district along 29th Street, in the Industrial section, and also like the commercial district near the Bon Secour Hospital, both just outside of Altoona's downtown. To reduce confusion due to the change in street names, many of the roadways were given a "North" prefix. The most important street in Juniata's L-shaped commercial district is North Second Street.

Greenwood/East End
Greenwood is a mixture of urban and suburban style neighborhoods, with more modern buildings than you find in Juniata. Greenwood's boundary is not agreed upon, some state that it is Greenwood Road, while others state that it is Main Street (ironically, not Altoona's main street), and others say that it includes the part of the East End that's less urban than around Route 764. Some of Greenwood is north of incorporated Altoona and is actually part of Logan township. On Business Route 220, there is actually a small "village of Greenwood" sign, despite the fact that it's actually partly in Altoona and partly in Logan Township.

The East End includes part of the Dutch Hill region and is bounded by 1st street, because north of 1st street, all avenue names are given an "east" prefix. The East End, in contrast to Greenwood's lower density, is surprisingly urban and densely packed, almost as dense as downtown in some parts.

www.wikipedia.com
www.altoonapa.gov
www.alleghenymountains.com

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