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Bessemer Commerce Park (Atlantic and Great Western Railroad)

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Atlantic and Great Western Railroad
1865. 764 Bessemer St.

This handsome, large, orange-red brick building was the blacksmith's shop of the Atlantic and Great Western Railroad headquarters, which was located here in the 1860s. While utilitarian in purpose, the structure is very high style, especially when compared to the spare designs of the Pennsylvania Railroad buildings in Altoona. It is constructed of brick with stone quoins and round-arched window surrounds, and stepped corbeling outlines the cornice of the intersecting gable-roofed structure. The shop was once part of a much larger complex of buildings, including a roundhouse and sheds. A frame passenger station, now a garden supply store (c. 1870; 133 Pine Street), and a brick freight station also survive on Mead Avenue.

Writing Credits

Author: 
Lu Donnelly et al.
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Citation

Lu Donnelly et al., "Bessemer Commerce Park (Atlantic and Great Western Railroad)", [Meadville, Pennsylvania], SAH Archipedia, eds. Gabrielle Esperdy and Karen Kingsley, Charlottesville: UVaP, 2012—, http://sah-archipedia.org/buildings/PA-01-CR16.

Print Source

Cover: Buildings of PA vol 1

Buildings of Pennsylvania: Pittsburgh and Western Pennsylvania, Lu Donnelly, H. David Brumble IV, and Franklin Toker. Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2010, 514-514.

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