{"nrhp_refnum":"78002363","name":"Penn's Cave and Hotel","other_names":["Long's Cave"],"category":"building","location":{"address":"5 mi. (8 km) E of Centre Hall off PA 192, Gregg Township","address_restricted":false,"city":"Centre Hall","county":"Centre County","state":"PA","lat":40.88277830700005,"lon":-77.60962641330264,"geom_source":"nps_gis"},"listed_date":"1978-04-14","is_nhl":false,"nhl_designated_date":null,"areas_of_significance":["Entertainment/Recreation","Architecture"],"significance_levels":["local"],"summary":{"what_it_is":"A three-story wood-frame hotel, built in 1885 beside the entrance to Penn's Cave near Centre Hall, Centre County, Pennsylvania, with a limestone cavern about 1,300 feet long. It was built for the Long brothers and is known as the Penn's Cave House.","why_significant":"The building is presented as a fine example of late 19th-century rural Pennsylvania architecture, with a tall mansard roof, white paint and pedimented window frames. The cave itself is described as a long-admired natural curiosity that attracted tourists and recreational visitors from the 1860s onward. Together the hotel and cave are argued to form a notable mix of natural and man-made features tied to local tourism history.","narrative":"Built in 1885 by local contractor Abraham Luse for brothers Jesse and Samuel Long, this three-story wood-frame hotel stands beside the entrance to Penn's Cave, a limestone cavern about 1,300 feet long with an underground stream. Its tall mansard roof, white paint, pedimented window frames and painted frieze reading 'Penns Cave House' give it a massive, low-set character. The third floor is regarded as largely unchanged since construction, while the first and second floors were altered in 1938 when a rear wing was removed, and the dormers were taken off in 1960. The cave drew visitors from the 1840s onward, and after Isaac Paxton and Albert Woods found its water connected to the stream about 1860, informal boat tours followed. The building is significant as a fine example of late nineteenth-century rural Pennsylvania architecture and as the center of a recreational site that attracted tourists and visiting dignitaries for decades.","period_of_significance":null,"architect_builder":"D. F. Luge (builder, per the form's significance section); Abraham Luse (local contractor, per the continuation sheets)","architectural_style":null,"criteria":[],"status_note":"In use as of 1978 as a gift shop, snack bar, corporation office and residence; a one-story rear wing was added c. 1962.","vacant_flag":false,"machine_generated":true,"model":"claude-haiku-5-5","prompt_version":"v1.1-2026-10-29","generated_at":"2026-10-29 17:11:31.081706-05","source_pdf":"https://s3.amazonaws.com/NARAprodstorage/lz/electronic-records/rg-079/NPS_PA/78002363.pdf"},"photo":{"url_800":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/78002363/68131899eb-800.webp","url_1600":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/78002363/68131899eb-1600.webp","licence":"CC BY-SA 4.0","author":"Hmcdonald3","credit_html":"<a href=\"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Penns_Cave_Hotel_Oct_2020.jpg\" rel=\"noopener\">Hmcdonald3</a>, <a href=\"https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0\" rel=\"license noopener\">CC BY-SA 4.0</a>, via Wikimedia Commons","source_page":"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Penns_Cave_Hotel_Oct_2020.jpg"},"district":null,"sources":{"nps_snapshot_date":"2026-05-22","nara_catalog":"https://catalog.archives.gov/id/71994937","wikipedia":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penn%27s_Cave_and_Hotel","wikidata":"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q1318597"},"indexable":true,"url":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/pennsylvania/centre-county/penns-cave-and-hotel-78002363/"}