Windber Historic District

Windber is a planned coal company town in the narrow Paint Creek valley of Somerset County, Pennsylvania, laid out by the Berwind-White Coal Mining Company in 1897 and built out largely by 1930. The district holds 945 contributing resources, including worker housing of frame construction with weatherboard siding, a hillside enclave of management houses in Queen Anne and Colonial Revival styles, and a central business district on Graham Avenue. Notable commercial buildings include the Colonial Revival company headquarters completed in 1903, the Classical Revival Windber Trust Building of 1910, and the Eureka Department Store. Its significance rests on the way the layout and housing expressed company control over workers, and on its contrast with the surrounding patch towns. Immigrant communities organized around churches and fraternal groups, and strikes in 1906 and 1922 are documented as part of the town's labor history.