Story courtesy of Rob Keith

When the town of Hallton was first settled around 1810 by Amos Davis, it was known as Spring Creek. By the 1820s, Job Paine and James Watterson built a sawmill in the area where it became a rally point for rafts men during the rafting era of lumbering along the Clarion River.

In the 1880s, James K. Gardner and John G. Hall formed the Hall, Gardner & Co and constructed a sawmill. It was then that the town became known as Hallton. The Clarion River Railway was completed to Hallton in 1891, and the Tionesta Valley Railway that came down Spring Creek from Sheffield also served Hallton. Hall would die in 1889 and William H. Hyde (Joseph S. Hyde’s son) would join the venture. In 1905 Frank Clawson would construct a wood chemical plant up Spring Creek from Hallton on the west bank of the creek. The Hall, Gardner & Co sawmill would close in 1909, but it would take until 1948 for the Clawson Chemical Company plant to close, which also forced the abandonment of the Clarion River Railway.

Like many small towns along the Clarion River, once the lumber industry moved on, so did the citizens and industries in the town. The history of the town is captured in the photos and the stories told by the people that lived and worked there. For more information on the history of and current activities available in the Pennsylvania Great Outdoors, go to VisitPAGO.com