{"nrhp_refnum":"92000946","name":"Downtown Altoona Historic District","other_names":["See Also:Dudley,Charles P.,House","Central Trust Company Build"],"category":"district","location":{"address":"Roughly bounded by 11th Ave., 11th St., 15th Ave. and 13th St., also 700--1000 Lexington and 900--1000 Howard Aves.","address_restricted":false,"city":"Altoona","county":"Blair County","state":"PA","lat":40.51899416850006,"lon":-78.40071401747784,"geom_source":"nps_gis"},"listed_date":"1992-07-24","is_nhl":false,"nhl_designated_date":null,"areas_of_significance":["Commerce","Architecture"],"significance_levels":["local"],"summary":{"what_it_is":"A historic district in downtown Altoona, Blair County, Pennsylvania, containing residential, commercial, civic, social and religious buildings dating from the 1860s to the present. It covers the West Altoona and Greensburg sections laid out near the Pennsylvania Railroad yards.","why_significant":"The nomination argues the district is significant in commerce, as the center of commercial activity for the city and the Juniata Valley, and in architecture, for its concentrated commercial blocks and intact late-nineteenth-century streetscapes of working middle class housing. It holds 233 contributing resources and four individually listed properties.","narrative":"Downtown Altoona sits on the northwest side of the Pennsylvania Railroad yards and contains residential, commercial, civic and religious buildings from the 1860s onward. Its growth followed the railroad, which made Altoona a hub after 1849, and the district preserves the core of the city's commerce, with midrise blocks along 11th Avenue and frame houses on 14th and 15th Avenues and Lexington and Howard Avenues. Many dwellings are Queen Anne and Victorian vernacular houses built largely between 1870 and 1900, some by local architects Louis and Michael J. Beezer. The district also includes the Cathedral of the Blessed Sacrament, designed by George I. Lovett, and churches in stone. Its commercial buildings, including the Penn Alto Hotel and the Central Trust Company Building, served the Juniata Valley as well as the city itself, and the district is regarded as the surviving core of Altoona's downtown after 1960s urban renewal.","period_of_significance":"C. 1860-1941","architect_builder":null,"architectural_style":"Late Victorian; Late 19th/20th century revivals; Vernacular","criteria":["A","C"],"status_note":null,"vacant_flag":null,"machine_generated":true,"model":"claude-haiku-5-5","prompt_version":"v1.1-2026-10-29","generated_at":"2026-10-29 17:11:35.66222-05","source_pdf":"https://s3.amazonaws.com/NARAprodstorage/lz/electronic-records/rg-079/NPS_PA/92000946.pdf"},"photo":{"url_800":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/92000946/f9a4658089-800.webp","url_1600":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/92000946/f9a4658089-1600.webp","licence":"CC BY-SA 3.0","author":"1ericmiller1","credit_html":"<a href=\"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Altoona_2.jpg\" rel=\"noopener\">1ericmiller1</a>, <a href=\"https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0\" rel=\"license noopener\">CC BY-SA 3.0</a>, via Wikimedia Commons","source_page":"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Altoona_2.jpg"},"district":null,"sources":{"nps_snapshot_date":"2026-05-22","nara_catalog":"https://catalog.archives.gov/id/71994507","wikipedia":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Downtown_Altoona_Historic_District","wikidata":"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q5303347"},"indexable":true,"url":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/pennsylvania/blair-county/downtown-altoona-historic-district-92000946/"}