the disparity between
the present and the
past, when this small
corner of northwestern
Pennsylvania was an
economic powerhouse.
The Penn Brad Oil
Museum (%814-362-1955;
http://www.pennbradoilmuseum.
org; 901 South Ave; adult/child
$5/free; h10am-4pm Tue-
Sat), like the Drake Well
Museum in Titusville,
tells the story of the
world’s first billion-dollar
oil field and includes
a ‘model home’ of an
oil field worker and an
80ft tall working rig
typical of the boom
time in the late-1800s.
Perhaps unsurprisingly,
the museum comes off
as something of an oil
industry booster, even
a promoter of today’s
controversial method
of fracking, which has
unlocked the region’s
vast natural gas deposits
in the Marcellus Shale
- at what cost is the
question. If you were
to continue driving on
Rte 6 all the way east
to the Poconos, you’d
notice the enormous
infrastructure supplying
fracking’s boom – trucks,
equipment suppliers,
etc – is the most striking
new feature of the
landscape.
4 p175
The Drive » Rte 219 south
takes you all the way back to Rte
6 at Lantz Corners where you
head east to Mt Jewett on this
28-mile drive.
4 Kinzua Bridge
State Park
The Kinzua railroad
viaduct, once the highest
and one of the longest
railroad suspension
bridges in the world,
was built in 1882 to
transport coal across
the valley to customers
to the north. In 2003,
as it was undergoing
repairs to reinforce its
deteriorating structure,
a tornado swept through
the valley destroying a
portion of the bridge.
After finally being
decomissioned, it was
reopened as a ‘skywalk’
in 2011 and it and the
surrounding 329 acres
became the Kinzua
Bridge State Park
(%814-965-2646; http://www.
visitanf.com; 1712 Lindholm
Rd). The remaining six
towers now carry people
instead of trains 600ft
out where it dead-ends
in an overlook – a small
section here has a glass
floor so you can see
directly to the valley
floor 225 ft below.The Drive » Head through
Smethport towards Port
Allegheny on this 59-mile
drive. After Port Allegheny, Rte
6 follows the Allegheny River,
but further east it narrows into
a stream. Several miles after
Coudersport (p175) – that
garish gold-colored behemoth
on Main St is the former
headquarters of cable giant
Adelphia Communications Co –
make a right onto PA-44 south.5 Cherry Springs
State Park
Ponder the immensity
of the universe at this
dark sky park, considered
one of the best places
for stargazing east of
the Mississippi. Cherry
Springs (%814-435-5010;
http://www. visitpapards.com; PA
44, Potter Cty) is one of
only five parks in the
country (the others are
in Big Bend, Texas; Death
Valley, California; Natural
Bridges, Utah; and Clayton
Lake, New Mexico), to
have received the highest
rating or certification by
the organization in charge
of these sorts of things –
the International Dark
Sky Association (www.
darksky.org).
Essentially two large
open fields, one a former
runway, at an elevation
of 2300 ft, Cherry
Springs is blessed to
be surrounded by the
hills of the 262,000-
acre Susquehannock
State Forest that tend
to block any artificial
light. The area also
has an extremely low
population density.
Beginning about an hour
after sunset on Friday
and Saturday nights from
Memorial Day to Labor
Day (Saturdays only from
mid-April to end of May
and September to the
end of October), the park
hosts free laser-guided
and telescope-assistedTRIP HIGHLIGHT TRIP HIGHLIGHTNEW.JERSEY.&.PENNSYLVANIA.TRIPS.14
.THROUGH THE WILDS ALONG ROUTE 6