The Southern Alleghenies Museum of Art has a branch in Ligonier. The grounds feature some beautiful statuary while indoors the featured exhibit focused on the nearby Frank Lloyd Wright masterpiece, Fallingwater, at the time of my visit. The museum is free, but donations are appreciated.
A sampling of pieces featuring Fallingwater and a collection of glass paperweights.
Powdermill Nature Reserve is an environmental research center that is operated by the Carnegie Museum of Natural History.
Established in 1956, Powdermill serves as a field station for long-term studies of natural populations, and now forms the core of the museum’s Center for Biodiversity and Ecosystems. The reserve encompasses 928.17 hectares, which includes forests, fields, developed land, and ponds and streams.
It is located in the Laurel Highlands, near Rector, Pennsylvania and is well known for its avian research. The Center is one of the longest continually-running bird banding stations in the United States. I had visited on a previous trip, which you can read about here.
Laughlintown is located in Ligonier Township, Westmoreland County. It is located on U.S. Route 30, 3 miles southeast of Ligonier.
The town is named after Robert Laughlin. The Compass Inn, which is listed on the National Register of Historic Places, is located here, as are the Rolling Rock Club and The Washington Furnace Inn. However, I think for many the notable landmark is this bakery:
I couldn’t resist buying some pie and baklava here. Both were delicious. The menu also includes pizza and sandwiches. Across the street is the Compass Inn property. The Inn is a historic inn and tavern. It is a 2 1/2-story, five bay log and stone building in a vernacular Georgian style. The original section was built in 1799, and it is three bays wide. The two bay stone section was added in the 1820s. A clapboarded frame section was added in 1862. It was restored in 1970, and operated as a local history museum. The property includes a rebuilt barn and blacksmith shop.
Many forestry district offices seem to be in out of the way locations. This one is right on Route 30 in Laughlintown. They are great stops for maps and information.
Latrobe is a city in Westmoreland County, with a population of 8,060 as of the 2020 census. Latrobe was incorporated as a borough in 1854, and as a city in 1999.
Latrobe is known as the home of the Latrobe Brewery, the original brewer of Rolling Rock beer. Latrobe was also the birthplace and childhood home of children’s television personality Fred Rogers and former professional golfer Arnold Palmer. The nearby airport is named after Palmer.
The banana split was invented in Latrobe by David Strickler in 1904. The city is also home to the training camp of the Pittsburgh Steelers. Latrobe was long recognized as the site of the first professional American football game in 1895 until research found an 1892 game with paid players.
The banana split is claimed to have been invented in 1904 in Latrobe by David Evans Strickler at the pharmacy that later became named Strickler’s Drug Store. In 2004, the National Ice Cream Retailers Association certified Latrobe as the birthplace of the banana split. The town holds an annual festival in honor of the dessert.
The Winnie Palmer Nature Reserve is a 50 acre nature reserve adjacent to Saint Vincent College in Latrobe. The Reserve includes native landscapes, trails, meadows, gardens, an Environmental Learning Barn, Nature Explore Certified play spaces, pond, wetlands, and more. The property is open to the public for recreation, conservation, and education.
The reserve is named after Winnie Palmer, the wife of famed golfer Arnold Palmer, who was instrumental in the preservation of the land. More about the Reserve can be found on their website. at http://www.wpnr.org/ .
On the way back to Ligonier I stopped to take a look at the Loyalhanna Creek Causeway. The creek is popular with boaters and recreational trout fishermen.
It’s hard to imagine that the area that is now Linn Run State Park was once a clear cut wasteland. It is now covered by second -growth forest, which frames the tumbling and cascading Linn Run.
Near the Fish Run trail head, there is some signage recording the logging history of the area. The Pittsburgh, Westmoreland and Somerset Railroad traversed Laurel Mountain to service logging activities there. The route taxed the limits of the steam locomotives, which could refill their boilers at a water station, which was created by diverting the creek to form a pond. There was also a siding in this area to slow down run-away trains.
The town of Ligonier makes a great homebase or stopover for food or drinks when exploring the Laurel Highlands. I stopped by during my recent trip to the area for some lunch and to see the town, which is also home to historic Fort Ligonier.
Pictured below are the regular visitors to my cabin at Linn Run State Park. I also heard a lot of birdsong around th cabin in mid May, and the surrounding park and forest has an abundance of wildlife. The bird watching on the trip was a success, chalking up a few more birds for my life list and registering a large number of species (for me at least).
My cabin rental at Linn Run State Park made for a special midweek escape. The rustic cabins provide beds, a kitchen table with benches, refrigerator, microwave, oven, a ceiling fan, woodstove and other amenities. There is no running water but bathrooms and a laundry and dishwashing area are nearby. The park does have one modern cabin with a bathroom.
Rustic cabins in the state parks are my favorite. These are particulalry lovely with their streamside setting. The rushing water will lull you to sleep at night.
The best part of any cabin is the outside.
Linn Run State Park is located on Laurel Mountain near Ligonier. The 612-acre park is a scenic place for picnicking, hiking, and cabin rentals. Grove Run and Rock Run join to make Linn Run, an excellent trout stream. A lovely waterfall, Adam Falls, is a scenic spot nearby the picnic area.
I had visited the park a few years ago and knew that I wanted to return. I rented a cabin, and this will be featured in a later post. The park borders the 50.000 acre Forbes State Forest and a section of Laurel Ridge State Park. The varied topography and mixed hardwood and evergreen forest are beautiful any time of year.
