West Overton Historic District

Along a single street in East Huntingdon Township, Westmoreland County, stands a cluster of brick houses, barns and mill buildings that once formed the village of West Overton. The Overholt family founded the settlement after purchasing a log distillery in 1810, and by 1859 their stone and brick distillery, flour mill and outbuildings had grown into a small industrial community. The Abraham Overholt Homestead dates from 1838 and the five-and-a-half-story mill from 1859, and the district contains about twenty buildings in deep red brick with sawtooth banding and golden fieldstone foundations. Henry Clay Frick, the coal and coke industrialist, was born in the springhouse of the homestead in 1849. The district is significant for its architecture, which remains largely intact from the mid-19th century, and for its association with the Overholt distilling business and the Frick family.