When cruising down Interstate 99, it’s easy to fly past exit 61. Nestled in the Bald Eagle Valley just off the highway between Tyrone and State College lies the small town of Port Matilda. Today, the town has a bank, market, post office, elementary school and the Port Matilda Hotel and Tavern (which boasts some of the best wings in the area!). While the town has remained small over the years, Port Matilda is wrought with a nearly 175-year history.
Port Matilda traces its roots to 1850, when Squire Clement Beckwith formed the town plot. The naming of the town, however, is not as clear. Beckwith undoubtedly used “Matilda” after his daughter, but “Port” is the source of some debate. The most common explanation, cited by the Centre County Historical Society, claims that Beckwith hoped to eventually connect the town to the Bald Eagle and Spring Creek Branch of the Pennsylvania Canal, which unfortunately never came to pass.
Beckwith, who had lived in Bellefonte for nearly 20 years prior, purchased 1,800 acres and set about building all the amenities necessary for a pioneer village, including several mills, houses and a worship space. John Blair Linn’s History of Centre and Clinton Counties, Pennsylvania mentions that before land was carved up among early settlers, the township—like most of the county—was home to “Cornplanter Indians,” but pressures from westward expansion and various treaties had seen the last move from the area around the turn of the 19th century. Thus, the town of Port Matilda was born, and its significance would grow.
In 1852, a plank road was run from recently plotted Tyrone to industrial hub Bellefonte. Fortunately for Port Matilda, the old wooden roadway passed directly through the heart of town. In the latter half of the 1800s, Linn notes, in addition to the frequent traveler on horseback or wagon, four stagecoaches were run daily through the village on their way to or from Bellefonte, with one stopping overnight in Port Matilda. With so much traffic, the town’s amenities increased, and the town’s most famous landmark, the Port Matilda Hotel, was erected as the only hostelry for several miles in either direction.
The Port Matilda Hotel has its roots in the birth of the town, and has witnessed the growth, “golden years,” and eventual decline that plagued so many industrial towns. The town’s first tavern was built and managed by John Fugate Sr. to take advantage of the growing travel through Port Matilda. In addition to the old plank road, the Bald Eagle Valley eventually had railway lines that would increase travel and industry. In an advertisement from the Tyrone Star in 1859, new manager R.D. Cummings boasted that the hotel “interior and exterior are in the best style, and handsomest order. … His bar is furnished at all times with the choicest liquors, so excellent in quality, indeed, as to please the most fastidious taste.”
This original hotel would pass hands several times until 1871, when it was burned to the ground by an incendiary. Eventually rebuilt, the hotel flourished through the turn of the 20th century managed by G.W. Woodring, Harry Woodring and, in the 1920s, Max Reddenberger, who added a bar in place of a living room. Aside from the Prohibition years, the bar operated until a resolution turned the borough “dry” in the 1950s. According to local lore, hotel owner “Gib” Woodring ended the borough’s experiment by personally escorting enough “wets” to the polls in 1962 to overturn the resolution.
For many years, Port Matilda was a “boom” town, both figuratively and literally, as the largest industry in town was the McFeely Brick Company. Employees blasted away ganister rock from the face of Bald Eagle Mountain over many years; the rock was used to make a specific type of silica brick. Most people living in Port Matilda had a connection to the brickyard, which required a great labor force to produce, package and ship their products via rail from the site. At that time, in the 1930s and 1940s, the industrial economy of the town provided for theaters, parks, community swimming pools, stores and schools.
Like many industrial towns in central Pennsylvania, once the main industry leaves, the town struggles. McFeely Brick Company was sold in 1959, and the new owners promptly closed the Port Matilda brickyard. The booming stopped, but Port Matilda survived. Today, Port Matilda remains as a crossroads town. While I-99 has made it far too easy to cruise on past, Port Matilda is definitely worth passing through, grabbing a basket of wings and reminiscing on what small-town America looked like for our past generations. T&G
Local Historia is a passion for local history, community, and preservation. Its mission is to connect you with local history through engaging content and walking tours. Local Historia is owned by public historians Matt Maris and Dustin Elder, who co-author this column. For more, visit localhistoria.com.
Sources:
Centre County Historical Society. “The ABCs of Centre County.” Centre County Historical Society, 12 Aug. 2021, centrehistory.org/the-abcs-of-centre-county/.
Linn, John Blair, and J. Thomas Mitchell. History of Centre and Clinton Counties, Pennsylvania. Centre County Library and Historical Museum, 1962.
“My Town: Port Matilda.” StateCollege.Com, 5 Jan. 2021, test.statecollege.com/centre-county-gazette/my-town-port-matilda/.
“Port Matilda Hotel.” Tyrone Star, 23 Apr. 1859, p. 2. “Old Hotel will become town’s new post office.” Centre Daily Times, 11 Oct. 1991, p. 11
