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TWENTIETH CENTURY HISTORY OF CLEARFIELD COUNTY PENNSYLVANIA AND REPRESENTATIVE CITIZENS by Roland D. Swoope, Jr. Chicago, Ill., Richmond-Arnold Publishing Company, 1911
CHAPTER XIV.
HISTORY OF HOUTZDALE BOROUGH.
The town was named in honor of Dr. Daniel Houtz, of Alexandria, Pa., so often named in this history as owning a vast number of acres of land in this vicinity, and upon a portion of whose lands the town was portion of whose lands the town was projected, and is situated on the Moshannon Branch Railroad, six miles from Osceola Mills. It was made a borough on the 20th day of March, 1872. The borough is surrounded with numerous smaller towns, which join up to her limits, so that a stranger cannot tell where the town begins or ends. For three miles along the railroad the traveler is continuously passing through towns and villages - Stirling on the east, West Houtzdale on the west, Loraine joining West Houtzdale further west, and Atlantic joining Loraine still further west, while Brisbin borough's south line is Houtzdale's north line.
The town grew very rapidly from the beginning. The coal surrounding the Borough was proven to be the best then, or now, known, and therefore capital rushed in to secure the prize. As the collieries multiplied, the population increased and houses went up as if by magic.
A post office was granted the borough in 1870, John Brisbin being the first postmaster.
The first church building erected was on the corner of Charles and Clara streets, a union church, but it afterwards passed into the hands of the Methodist Episcopal society.
At present Houtzdale depends altogether for its business on the mining industry. The timber is all cut in and around the town, therefore the saw-mills are abandoned. The old mill on the eastern side of the borough, near the Eureka No. 1 colliery, and which was built by E. N. Conn & Co., in 1868, afterwards sold to Frank, Liveright & Co., and which cut the major portion of the timber on Dr. Houtz's land, was destroyed by fire in the summer of 1876. The site of the mill pond is now covered by residences, the Presbyterian church, the railroad repot and business places.
Houtzdale has seven churches, a national bank, paved streets, a fine water supply, electric plant, a weekly newspaper, and although the hustling town of Madera is pushing it hard as the center of the coal industry of the county, Houtzdale still does a large business in connection with the various coal operations in the neighborhood. The people of the town are energetic, and progressive. The present population is about fifteen hundred.
Houtzdale Sanborn Map, 1887
Street Scene in Houtzdale in 1910
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