The town is a regular stop for the daily east-west Amtrak passenger train service which connects Pittsburgh to the west with Philadelphia and New York City to the east and northeast.

Through a combination of ongoing war with other indigenous nations, such as the Haudenosaunee, disease brought by Europeans, and violence from settlers, the Susquehannock are currently thought to have been entirely wiped out or subsumed by other tribes.

William Smith began selling lots on the Standing Stone Tract along the Juniata, land he had recently acquired.

Huntingdon (the name by which he eventually called his town) sits at the site of corn fields that had been cultivated at a date now unknown, next to where Standing Stone Creek flows into the Juniata River.

The 100th anniversary of its incorporation was marked by the erection of a "Standing Stone Monument" on Third Street, modeled on a tall, narrow shaft known to have existed before 1750, whose purpose is unclear but may have served as a trail marker.

A story surfaced during the early 19th century that Smith had renamed Standing Stone Settlement to honor an Englishwoman, Selina Hastings, Countess of Huntingdon.

In past years, Huntingdon boasted of manufacturers of flour, heavy machinery, radiators, furniture, stationery, woolen goods, shirts, shoes, electronic components, finished lumber, fiberglass yarn, matting and underground storage tanks.

In the 19th century, J. C. Blair, a native of Shade Gap and a stationer and businessman, popularized the writing tablet and began marketing it nationwide.

The 1897 Commemorative Biographical Encyclopedia of the Juniata Valley reported that the factory's output was twenty-five dozens per day and furnished "all the brooms used by the Pennsylvania Railroad Company."

[4] On 27 February 1903, the Everett Press reported that the "Herncane Broom Factory of Huntingdon was destroyed by fire last Saturday night.

In adjoining Smithfield Township (across the Juniata River) are the regional headquarters of the Pennsylvania Game Commission (Southcentral Division) and the Bureau of Forestry (Rothrock State Forest).

Historic Blair Park, directly across the same stream, is owned and managed by a nonprofit group; it contains a gazebo and a level hiking and biking trail.