Downtown Johnstown Historic District

Johnstown's downtown commercial core sits in a river valley at the confluence of Stony Creek and the Little Conemaugh River, laid out on a grid of streets and alleys by founder Joseph Johns in 1800. Most of the roughly 200 buildings were erected between 1890 and 1930, after the 1889 flood, in brick and stone with terra cotta ornament, and they range from two-story storefronts to the six-story Swank Building of 1907. The district contains six churches, a city hall of 1900, a 1912 post office and a 1892 Carnegie library that now houses the Johnstown Flood Museum. Its significance rests on two strands. It served as the trading and government center for Johnstown as Cambria Iron grew into one of the largest iron and steel producers in the country. It also holds the city's most important flood-surviving buildings, including the Franklin Street Methodist Church, whose stone walls are credited with splitting the flood wave, and the Ludwig House, which served as Red Cross headquarters after the disaster.