Robertsdale Historic District

Robertsdale is a coal company town on the east side of Broad Top Mountain in southwest Huntingdon County, laid out in 1873 by the Rockhill Iron and Coal Company. Most of its roughly 95 surviving company houses date from about 1873 to 1925 and are mostly semi-detached wood frame buildings set at the front of long narrow lots. The town also includes a company store built in 1873-4 of local buff stone, a cast stone company office of about 1914, a 1914 cast stone depot, a hotel, a school and a theatre. The company controlled the land, the store and the railroad that carried coal to Mt. Union, and it used restrictive covenants in leases and deeds to limit union activity. The town is regarded as a representative example of a Pennsylvania coal patch town, and its mine site holds remains that could inform study of mining methods.