Saegertown's site on French Creek made it an attractive place for Major Roger Alden's saw and grist mills in 1800, and it became the market center for the farms of Woodcock Township. In 1824, Daniel Saeger and several German compatriots laid out the town in time to take advantage of the construction of the nearby canal. It was named a borough in 1851. Two red brick two-story buildings at 402 and 440 Main Street, one a house and the other a commercial building, appear to date from the 1830s and reflect the presence of the canal through the town.
The small village has been spared the development pressures inherent when commercial districts are in the path of the railroad. Here, though, the Atlantic and Great Western Railroad ran north on a side street, not directly through the middle of Saegertown, keeping the commercial district intact. Solid housing dating from the 1890s to the 1920s in styles ranging from bungalow to Shingle Style to Queen Anne and Italianate distinguishes this town from others of its size in Crawford County. Two late-nineteenth-century houses of interest along the tracks are the frame Stick Style houses at 338 and 352 Euclid Avenue. The latter is a George F. Barber Design No. 27, similar to the Roueche house in Meadville ( CR7). The handsome, board-and-batten Gothic Revival Twelve Apostles Lutheran Church of c. 1860 at 358 Euclid Avenue is a fine example of its type. The Independent Order of Odd Fellows building (1909) at 518 Main Street is the largest commercial structure in town. Two steel bridges cross French Creek north and south of Saegertown. The bridge carrying South Street over the creek (1900, Youngstown Bridge Company) is a Pennsylvania through truss with a delicate network of diagonal members, the oldest of its type in the region.
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