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Top Attractions in Altoona

Baker Mansion

The Baker Mansion is a historic home located at Altoona in Blair County, Pennsylvania, United States. It was built between 1844 and 1848, and is a three story, dressed stone building in the Greek Revival style. The front facade is five bays wide and features six fluted Ionic order columns. The building houses the Blair County Historical Society. Baker Mansion was originally home to ironmaster Elias Baker and his family. Baker purchased the nearby Alleghany Furnace in 1836 in partnership with his cousin Roland Diller. Elias brought his wife, Hetty, and their two sons, David Woods and Sylvester, from Lancaster County to what was described as a "tolerable good mansion house" near the furnace. Shortly after they arrived, a daughter, Anna, was born. A fourth child, Margaretta, was born in 1839, but she died of diphtheria at the age of two. In 1844, Elias Baker bought out his cousins share in the furnace. That same year, he contracted with Baltimore architect Robert Cary Long, Jr. to design him a new home. Work got underway on the mansion in 1845 but many problems and delays retarded its completion until 1849. The total cost was about $15,000. The cost overruns, coupled with falling prices for iron, pushed Mr. Baker to the brink of financial ruin before the home was finished. Still, Baker, ever the determined businessman, pressed ahead and achieved his dream house. He would enjoy it for fifteen years until his death in 1864. Hetty Baker remained a widow until her death in 1900. David Woods Baker married Sarah Tuthill in 1851 and they had one daughter, Louise, in 1852. However, Woods was killed in a steamboat boiler explosion just two and a half weeks after the birth of his daughter. Louise later married Ernst Beckman and returned with him to live in his native Sweden. Sylvester and Anna both remained single and lived in the mansion until their deaths. After Anna died in 1914, the mansion was closed until 1922, when the Blair County Historical Society leased the building and opened it as a museum. With the communitys support for a major fundraising campaign, the society was able to purchase the house in 1941. Since then, the mansion has served as the Societys headquarters and has become a beloved community landmark. In 2001, the Society completed an exterior rehabilitation, returning the building to its original appearance. Work has begun on interior rehabilitation. The project is financed in part from a state Redevelopment Assistance Capital grant and from local matching funds the Society is working to raise. It was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1975.

Railroaders Memorial Museum

The Railroaders Memorial Museum is a railroad museum in Altoona, Pennsylvania. The museum is dedicated to revealing, interpreting, commemorating and celebrating the significant contributions of railroaders and their families to American life and industry. The museum also operates the visitor center at Horseshoe Curve National Historic Site. Altoona is one of the hubs of the areas tourist industry. Many significant cultural resources are within the city itself, and most of these resources are linked directly to the citys long history as a railroad center. Altoona is in a section of southwestern Pennsylvania that is home to a number of significant cultural and historic resources. The Allegheny Portage Railroad National Historic Site, Johnstown Flood National Memorial, Horseshoe Curve National Historic Site, Staple Bend Tunnel, and the historic iron furnace at Mt. Etna are all within 25 miles of Altoona. For more than a century, Altoona was one of the most important rail facilities in the United States. The city was home to the Altoona Works, the Pennsylvania Railroads repair and maintenance shops, locomotive construction facility, and test department. Altoonas location at the foot of the Allegheny front and its proximity to the Horseshoe Curve route over the mountains made the city a key location in the PRRs Altoona operations. PRRs contribution to the nation’s transportation infrastructure, and to production standardization, marks it as one of the most important contributors to Americas industrial revolution. By the 1920s, the Altoona railroad works employed 15,000 workers; by 1945 the PRRs facilities at Altoona had become the worlds largest rail shop complex. In 2004 the Ghost Hunters team investigated the Altoona Railroaders Memorial Museum, where the spirit of a railroad worker has reportedly been seen walking the halls. The museum did not prove to be haunted.

Fort Roberdeau

Fort Roberdeau, also known as The Lead Mine Fort, is a historic fort located in Tyrone Township outside of Altoona PA. It was built in 1778, during the American Revolution and was occupied until 1780. Initial efforts were made in 1939-41 to reconstruct the fort by concerned local agencies with support from the National Youth Administration. The stockade was finally reconstructed as a Bicentennial project in 1975-76. The original fort was built of horizontal logs with a bastion at each corner. The fort was originally erected by General Daniel Roberdeau to protect local lead mining activities from the Native Americans and Tories. The fort is open to the public as a historic site, administered and owned by the County of Blair, PA. It was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1974. The site consists of the reconstructed fort and its structures, a restored barn which serves as visitor center, a restored farmhouse, a sinkhole, a trail system, and a log house built in the style of an original frontier house. The site is open May 1 through October 31.

Leap-The-Dips

Leap-The-Dips is the world's oldest operating roller coaster and North America's last surviving side friction roller coaster. It is located at Lakemont Park in Altoona, Pennsylvania and was built in 1902 by the E. Joy Morris Company. Leap-the-Dips operated until 1985, when it closed due to disrepair. A fund-raising campaign led to a restoration starting in 1997 and a reopening on Memorial Day 1999. Although the ride is quite tame by today's standards, being only 41 ft in height and having an average speed of 10 mph , many people still ride it. Several riders report that the rear wheels of cars were once able to leave the track at the crest of some dips. At one time there was a "twin" coaster called Leap the Dips at Mounds State Park in Anderson, Indiana. This ride was installed around the great mound in 1908 and visitors said at the top of the ride you could see all the way down to the river. Due to lack of business, the amusement park started selling its equipment in the early 1920s. The Leap-The-Dips is listed on the National Register of Historic Places and in 1996 was designated a National Historic Landmark. It is also an American Coaster Enthusiasts Coaster Classic and Coaster Landmark.

Horseshoe Curve

Horseshoe Curve is a three-track railroad curve on the Norfolk Southern Railway's Pittsburgh Line in Blair County, Pennsylvania. The curve itself is about 2,375-foot long and 1,300 feet in diameter; it was completed in 1854 by the Pennsylvania Railroad as a way to lessen the grade to the summit of the Allegheny Mountains. It eventually replaced the time-consuming Allegheny Portage Railroad, the only other route across the mountains for large vehicles. The rail line has been important since its opening, and during World War II the Curve was targeted by Nazi Germany in 1942 as part of Operation Pastorius. The Curve was later owned and used by Pennsylvania Railroad successors Penn Central, Conrail, and Norfolk Southern. Horseshoe Curve was added to the National Register of Historic Places and designated a National Historic Landmark in 1966, and became a National Historic Civil Engineering Landmark in 2004. Horseshoe Curve has long been a tourist attraction with a trackside observation park being completed in 1879. In the early 1990s the park was renovated and a visitor center built; the Railroaders Memorial Museum in Altoona manages the center, which has exhibits pertaining to the curve.

Southern Alleghenies Museum of Art

The Southern Alleghenies Museum of Art is an art museum with four locations in southwestern Pennsylvania in the United States. It is headquartered at Saint Francis University in Loretto, where it was founded in 1976. Other locations were opened later in Hollidaysburg in, Johnstown, and Ligonier . Starting with a collection of about 100 objects, the museums permanent collection now features more than 4,000 works by local, regional, national and international artists. The national artists include, among others, Will Barnet, William Baziotes, Albert Bierstadt, Mary Cassatt, Arny Karl, Walt Kuhn, Theodore Lukits, Thomas Moran, Gilbert Stuart, Thomas Sully, and Pittsburgh native Andy Warhol. Some of the local and regional artists are Ron Donoughe, George Hetzel, and William H. Rau. The museum is a repository for several distinctive special collections such as the Charles M. Schwab Collection of Presentation Silver and Other Memorabilia, the Colleen Browning Collection, and the Rezk Collection of Tibetan and Nepalese art. The Johnstown site is located in the Pasquerilla Performing Arts Center on the campus of the University of Pittsburgh at Johnstown. The Ligonier site includes rotating displays from the "Walter Carlyle Shaw Paperweight Collection".

Jaffa Shrine Center

The Jaffa Shrine Center is a 3,200-seat multipurpose arena located in Altoona, Pennsylvania. The current Shrine Center, headquarters to the Jaffa Shriners, was built in 1930, opening on September 25 of that year. It was the largest convention center in Blair County until the Blair County Convention Center was built. The Shrine Center building is a bilevel building measuring 216 feet by 206 feet . Inside, the Shrine Center auditorium, located on the main level, can be used for boxing, wrestling, basketball, concerts, banquets, the circus, conventions, such as Sci-Fi Valley Con, and other events. It seats up to 4,000 for concerts, boxing and wrestling. The auditorium features an 80-by-30-foot permanent stage and four offstage dressing and locker rooms. A mezzanine leads into the auditorium and features restrooms, checkrooms and two permanent concession stands, among other facilities. There are two lounges, located on either side of the auditorium. The 22nd Street Lounge measures 1,541 square feet and can hold up to 100, and the 23rd Street Lounge, which measures 1,127 square feet , holds to 70. At ground level is a 25,320-square-foot banquet room, which also hosts meetings and trade shows. It also features a state-of-the-art kitchen. A smaller meeting room is also located at ground level.

Penn Alto Building

The Penn Alto Building is a landmark building located in downtown Altoona, Pennsylvania, USA. The building is nine stories high and has a partial tenth floor penthouse. The name of the building remains the same, even though its usage has changed over time. The name changed from the Penn Alto Hotel to Penn Alto Apartments when it changed from strictly being a hotel to a residential hotel, which rents both apartments and hotel rooms. The current name is City Hall Commons, deriving its name from its proximity to City Hall, which is just across the street. The building was designed by the H.L. Stevens Company and constructed in 1921 and was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1989. It is in the Downtown Altoona Historic District. Official measurements of the building conflict with each other. One measurement is as conservative as 98 feet, while another lists it as 115 feet . These variations may be due to the slight incline that the Penn Alto was built on.

Skyliner

Skyliner is the name of a wooden roller coaster located at Lakemont Park in Altoona, Pennsylvania. It originally opened in 1960 at New York's Roseland Park, and was John C. Allen's first full-size coaster design. Roseland closed in 1985, and following the success Knoebels had in moving a wooden coaster, the Phoenix, Lakemont quickly followed suit, and the Skyliner reopened at its new home in 1987. The Skyliner operates a single train, with three cars, which have room for up to 18 adults. The ride's train uses Buzz bars. The Skyliner's train is painted with the Minor League baseball team Altoona Curve's team logo and colors. The phrase "GO CURVE" is also on the train. The Altoona Curve's baseball stadium is adjacent to Lakemont Park, with right field situated up against Skyliner. It is an ACE Coaster Classic.

Altoona Hospital

UPMC Altoona, located in downtown Altoona, Pennsylvania, is a 380-bed, non-profit, private community hospital system that contains more than 20 affiliated health care companies and functions as the regional referral center and tertiary hub of the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center (UPMC). Founded in 1883 as to serve the needs of the area and the Pennsylvania Railroad, the hospital was known for most of its history simply as Altoona Hospital. It became part of the Altoona Regional Health System which was created in 2004 by the merger of Altoona Hospital with Bon Secours-Holy Family Hospital, previously Mercy Hospital of Altoona. Today as part of UPMC, it is an Adult Level II trauma center for a 20 county region in central Pennsylvania and is served by 300 physicians and 4,000 care givers that help it to provide a variety of medical services and specialties.

Mercy/Bon Secours hospital

UPMC Altoona, located in downtown Altoona, Pennsylvania, is a 380-bed, non-profit, private community hospital system that contains more than 20 affiliated health care companies and functions as the regional referral center and tertiary hub of the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center (UPMC). Founded in 1883 as to serve the needs of the area and the Pennsylvania Railroad, the hospital was known for most of its history simply as Altoona Hospital. It became part of the Altoona Regional Health System which was created in 2004 by the merger of Altoona Hospital with Bon Secours-Holy Family Hospital, previously Mercy Hospital of Altoona. Today as part of UPMC, it is an Adult Level II trauma center for a 20 county region in central Pennsylvania and is served by 300 physicians and 4,000 care givers that help it to provide a variety of medical services and specialties.

UPMC Altoona

UPMC Altoona, located in downtown Altoona, Pennsylvania, is a 380-bed, non-profit, private community hospital system that contains more than 20 affiliated health care companies and functions as the regional referral center and tertiary hub of the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center (UPMC). Founded in 1883 as to serve the needs of the area and the Pennsylvania Railroad, the hospital was known for most of its history simply as Altoona Hospital. It became part of the Altoona Regional Health System which was created in 2004 by the merger of Altoona Hospital with Bon Secours-Holy Family Hospital, previously Mercy Hospital of Altoona. Today as part of UPMC, it is an Adult Level II trauma center for a 20 county region in central Pennsylvania and is served by 300 physicians and 4,000 care givers that help it to provide a variety of medical services and specialties.
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