Laid out in 1795 by Michael Barndollar, the borough was initially known as Bloody Run, either because of a military attack during Pontiac's Rebellion in 1763 or because animals were slaughtered on the creek's shoreline. It is located at the gap in Tussey Mountain made by the Raystown Branch of the Juniata River and the path of Forbes Road in the 1750s. The borough of Bloody Run was incorporated in 1860, but the name was changed to Everett in 1873 to honor the eminent Reverend Edward Everett, a former president of Harvard College, secretary of state in the 1850s, and, arguably, one of the most famous orators of the mid-nineteenth century, having spoken in 1863 for over two hours preceding President Abraham Lincoln's more memorable two-minute Gettysburg Address.
Over the years, industry and transportation shaped the small town's development. In 1863, the Huntingdon and Broad Top Mountain Railroad and Coal Company extended their line south to Bloody Run (Everett), but the line did not connect to Bedford until 1871. The restored freight and passenger stations at 49 and 51 W. 5th Street are used now as a community center, and the tracks no longer exist. Iron ore from Black Valley to the southwest and coal from the Broad Top region to the northeast made it possible to produce iron in Everett. In 1874, the Everett Iron Company incorporated, and opened coke blast furnaces at its shops. The company was so successful that its president, James Earlston Thropp, built a large frame house on the hillside west of the works, and a brick five-bay house for his son Earlston on PA 1004. Several red brick buildings from the former ironworks were reused by the State Turnpike Commission as offices and storage facilities. The 1870s also saw construction of a large planing mill that continues to operate in Everett. George Harrison Gibboney, a contractor, took over the planing mill c. 1900, and constructed a number of buildings in Bedford County.
The commercial district along E. and W. Main Street (U.S. 30) has several attractions promoted by the Lincoln Highway Heritage Park, including on E. Main Street, the Art Deco Everett Theater (c. 1920), the Union Hotel (1898), and the Igloo Soft Serve (c. 1965), which is another programmatic roadside building like the Coffee Pot in Bedford ( BD12). Here a scoop of fiberglass ice cream with chocolate sauce and a cherry on top offers frozen treats to Lincoln Highway travelers.
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