Curwensville is named for its earliest landowner, John Curwen, who settled here in 1799 and laid out forty-eight lots between Thompson and Locust streets. The town is divided into thirds by the West Branch Susquehanna River and Anderson Creek. It sits on high rolling land surrounded by flourishing farms and several coal mines. There has been a Quaker presence here from 1817, and a meetinghouse in town is now reused as an antiques store (818 State Street). The brick house commissioned by William Irvin in 1835, now a shop, appears to have been updated to its present Italianate appearance (240 State Street). The village became a borough in 1851. The railroad branch lines running through Curwensville provided the impetus for John Irvin's construction of the substantial stone two-and-one-half-story house with peaked gables (c. 1870; 211 State Street), as well as the stone Gothic Revival Curwensville Presbyterian Church (1868; 430 Locust Street). A pair of stone churches on State Street deserves attention: the Gothic Revival United Methodist Church (1893; 602 State Street) and the Shingle Style Grace Lutheran Church (1899; 406 Pine Street).
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