Ghost Town Trail

[1] Established in 1991 on the right-of-way of the former Ebensburg and Black Lick Railroad, the trail follows the Blacklick Creek and passes through many ghost towns that were abandoned in the early 1900s with the decline of the local coal mining industry.

[1] Wehrum, the largest of the former towns, once contained 230 houses, a hotel, company store, jail, bank, post office, school, and two churches.

[4] One of the few other remnants of Wehrum is a Russian Orthodox Church cemetery that sits in the woods above the trail; the last burials took place in 1927.

The property containing the furnace eventually totaled 822 acres (3.33 km2) and included a sawmill and several boarding houses to accommodate the more than 60 workers.

Barker on behalf of the Lackawanna Iron and Steel Company, who acquired a total of over 20,000 acres (81 km2) of coal land in Indiana and Cambria counties.

On November 5, 1957, the Delano Coal Company sold the property to the Historical & Genealogical Society of Indiana County.

The furnace is located along the trail in Brush Valley Township, Indiana County, about one-half mile west of PA 56.

[4] During the 1830s and 1840s, partners David Ritter and George Rodgers acquired several thousand acres in the Blacklick Valley and began construction of the furnace in 1845.

After the iron was produced at Eliza, it was carried by wagon to Nineveh (modern day Seward) in Westmoreland County or Johnstown, where it was transported by the Pennsylvania Canal to Pittsburgh.

David Ritter experienced financial problems, losing property in Armagh as payment when sued by former partner George Rodgers for $350.

In July 1848, the property was seized and sold at sheriff's sale to Soloman Alter and Joseph Replier of Philadelphia.

[10] In October 1996, interns from the Southwestern Pennsylvania Heritage Preservation Commission and Penn State's School of Forest Resources completed an economic impact study of the trail.

Since its establishment, the trail has been supported by the Keystone Grant Funding, a program that will match a donation from a variety of private, local, state, and federal groups.