IN 2002, I decided to return to Altoona to visit the places where it had all started for me. The last time I was in Altoona was fifteen years prior. I had mixed emotions when I boarded the plane from Los Angeles to Pittsburgh, but I was determined to go back and see my old house and any old friends who might still be around. As we climbed into the air I began to feel elated. I was now returning to my first home and going through my head were hundreds of youthful memories of my mother, my grandfather, my grandmother, friends, school, and anything else I could think of. My excitement grew when we landed in Pittsburgh. My spirits were at an all time high as I drove into Altoona. But as I drove around old Altoona, I could see that the life I once knew was gone. After all, I left Altoona as a boy in 1940.
The Altoona of today is no longer the thriving manufacturing and railroad center it was when I was a boy. Gone are the freight cars, passenger cars, and railroad equipment that made Altoona one of the country’s great railroad towns. No longer do railroad construction yards stretch on forever, and no longer is the smell of railroading in the air.
The Altoona of today is trying to recover from years of industrial decline and what people like to call decentralization. Altoona is now the home of the Altoona Curve baseball team of the Double A Eastern League, which is the Double A affiliate of the Pittsburgh Pirates. The seventy-eight-year-old Altoona Symphony Building still stands proudly, and the famous Horseshoe Curve, the Mishler Theatre, the Cathedral of the Most Blessed Sacrament, and the Jaffa Shrine Center are all solid reminders of Altoona’s past.
The Railroad Mechanic’s Library, built in 1853, was then known as the first industrial library in the nation. It is still there and is now known as the Altoona Public Library. Ivy Side Park, which once boasted the largest swimming pool in the world, is now a parking lot owned by Penn State. I remember swimming in that pool many times when I was a boy.
The downtown area is still the cultural and commercial center of Altoona, and much of it is listed in the national registry of historic places. Many of the older districts still consist of a mixture of row homes and individual homes that once served as the addresses of many a railroad worker. Altoona is now the corporate home to Sheetz, a fast growing convenience regional chain store.
Despite the fact that many historic buildings still stand from my time and before, sadly, many of them are now gone, including the famed Logan House Hotel. Altoona’s fire department, I understand, is the largest career fire department between Harrisburg and Pittsburgh. The Horseshoe Curve, a curved section of track built into the mountainside and owned by the Pennsylvania Railroad, has now become a tourist attraction and listed as a National Historic Landmark. The Horseshoe Curve is known as the Eighth Wonder of the Modern World. The Alleghenies proved to be the biggest obstacle for the Pennsylvania Railroad, and the way this area of track was designed and laid down was a truly remarkable feat of engineering. It was constructed entirely by men with picks, shovels, horses, and drags. It opened to traffic on February 15, 1854.
Built in 1920, “Leap-The-Dips” is the world’s oldest roller coaster. Located in Lakemont Park, “Leap-The-Dips” is the only “side friction” roller coaster left in North America. The ride is 1,452 feet long and 41 feet high, and received a full restoration for its reopening on May 31, 1999. It is a figure-eight coaster where its cars travel on wood instead of steel rails for most of the ride.
Altoona is still a city divided into many sections. Those sections are known as: Downtown, Dutch Hill, East End, Pleasant Valley region, Plank Road Shopping Center, Juniata, Logantown, Lakemont, Fairview, Eldorado, the Fifth Ward, and Industrial Park.
As I was driving, I was reliving my past in a city that was in many ways trying to hold on to its past. The real history of Altoona is trains. It has a train history that, in my opinion, no other city in America can equal.
Soon, I was out of my car and walking the streets. Up close, I could not help but be surprised as to just how small the houses and the streets were. Of course, I was much smaller myself back then. I used to think I had the biggest and greatest house on the street. Upon seeing my old house for the first time in many years, I wasn’t so sure. I was expecting to see it in the same shiny condition it was in when I lived there. I was sadly mistaken. In fact, I was in deep shock. Here was the house I grew up in and it did not look anything like what I reminisced about. It was no longer the stately home I once remembered. It had fallen into great disrepair with the wooden railing, that had once stretched elegantly across the entire length of the front of the house, now sagging and rotted. I actually wanted to cry. The thought came to mind that I should buy the house and restore it to its old grandeur.
I looked up my old friend Royden Piper, whom I stayed in touch with over the years. There are only a handful of people left in Altoona, including Bud and Janet Shaffer and Patsy Good, that I knew from my early days in Altoona. Royden Piper was one of them and someone I could rely on for the latest in Altoona news. Sadly, Royden passed away in 2008 and with him went a light that had burned brightly in my life. But on the day I was with him back in Altoona, he was full of energy and intent on showing me around.
“Bob, you and I are going to take a ride over the Railroader’s Memorial Museum,” Royden enthusiastically said to me.
“Where’s that?” I asked.
“Right here in Altoona. It’s filled with pictures, freight trains, and railroad equipment. All the things we remember being around when we were kids. You’ll find it very interesting.”
“Okay. Let’s go,” I told him.