Where is Portage Station Museum located?

Portage Station Museum is located in PA.

How do I get tickets to Portage Station Museum?

Tickets and current schedules are available on the operator's official website at https://www.facebook.com/Portageareahistoricalsociety/.

Photo by Nyttend, via Wikimedia Commons (Public domain)

Portage Station Museum

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Upcoming Events

No ticketed events are currently listed for Portage Station Museum. Many heritage operators publish schedules seasonally or run on regular open hours instead of dated events.

Check the operator’s website for current hours and special runs, or subscribe to event alerts and we’ll email you when something is scheduled.

About Portage Station Museum

In a Cambria County borough born at the foot of the Allegheny Portage Railroad's Inclined Plane No. 2, this small museum traces how inclined planes, the Pennsylvania Railroad, and coal made Portage. Browse exhibits on local railroading and mining, then watch the documentary on the 1940 Sonman Mine explosion before wandering the Portage Historic District, a National Register listing since 1995.

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History

Portage owes its existence to railroading. The community began with the opening of the Allegheny Portage Railroad in 1834 and was first known as "Foot of Two" for its position at the bottom of Inclined Plane No. 2, where the APRR placed its headquarters offices and shops. The Pennsylvania Railroad made the portage system obsolete by the 1850s, then built a wood-and-water stop and, by the 1860s, a passenger station in the growing coal-and-lumber town; after the main line was realigned in the 1890s a new station went up on Washington Avenue, succeeded in 1926 by one on Lee Street. Passenger trains last called on November 17, 1953, and the station closed the next year after a brief turn as a Railway Express Agency stop. The Portage Station Museum now interprets that long railroad-and-coal legacy with exhibits on area railroading and mining and a documentary, "63 Men Down," on the 1940 Sonman Mine explosion that killed sixty-three miners nearby. The surrounding Portage Historic District was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1995.