Bellefonte and Snowshoe Railroad
railway line in the United States of America
The Bellefonte and Snow Shoe Railroad was a coal-hauling railroad in Centre County, Pennsylvania. Begun in 1859, it came under the control of the Pennsylvania Railroad in 1881. Closing of mines in the 1930s resulted in the decline of traffic on the railroad, which was abandoned in 1959.
Origins and construction
The line was originally chartered as the Allegheny and Bald Eagle Railroad, Coal and Iron Company on June 12, 1839. The incorporators included Thomas Burnside and other investors in the Bald Eagle and Spring Creek Navigation canal then under construction, as well as Jacob Gratz, a Philadelphia investor in coal lands who owned over 40,000 acres (16,000 ha) in the vicinity of Snow Shoe. It was to extend from the western side of the Allegheny Mountains to Bald Eagle Creek. For many years, however, it showed no organized activity, although the Pennsylvania General Assembly periodically renewed its charter. In 1855, the purchase of the Gratz coal lands by William A. Thomas, a Bellefonte ironmaster, spurred further activity and investment from Philadelphians connected with Thomas. On May 2, 1855, a charter supplement allowed it to extend to Bellefonte, the head of the Bald Eagle and Spring Creek Navigation. In 1857, a survey of the line was finally completed.
“Bellefonte and Snowshoe Railroad” enters the record as railway line in the United States of America. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Bellefonte, Snowshoe and Railroad can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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Named sources, stable identifiers and responsible institutions provide the strongest route from overview to verifiable evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jun 13, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q4883775. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1859, 1881, 1959 and 1839.
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This entry incorporates text from “Bellefonte and Snowshoe Railroad” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.