Behind the Street Names: How They Tell the Story of the Growth of the Highlands

By Shane McGinness

The Highlands is one of the several neighborhoods in the municipality of State College. It is also a very large neighborhood. How large? There are approximately 60 named streets, alleys, roads, and avenues in the Highlands. That’s a lot, especially when many Penn State alumni can recall street names such as Allen, Atherton, or Pugh as if they were students once again walking to class.

The names of streets are even more familiar to the people who live on them, as many streets located here are named after real life people who lived back when the Highlands wasn’t an official neighborhood, but later became a significant part of a growing community that became the home of a major institution of higher education.

On August 29, 1896, nearly 128 years ago, the Borough of State College was incorporated. Although the Pennsylvania State University traces its roots to 1856, with the establishment of the Farmers’ High School, the community did not become an official town until 40 years later.

The growth of State College has been closely linked with the growth of the University’s enrollment size. On the eve of the incorporation of the Borough, Penn State, at the time known as the Pennsylvania State College, numbered only a few hundred in student enrollment. By the end of the 1930s, the College’s enrollment grew 15 fold¹. That is significant growth in only 30 or so years and, during those three decades, the town itself grew in dramatic fashion.

The growth of the area can be observed by studying a series of maps called the Sanborn Fire Insurance Maps (housed at Penn State’s main library)². These detailed maps, made during the 19th and 20th centuries, are invaluable documents delineating property growth and land development. For example, between the 1906 and 1929 maps document a southward expansion into what will eventually comprise over half of the Highlands today. One can even see where their current house existed back then with these interactive maps! We can’t tell the stories of the past based only on just several maps, but rather more importantly through the people who’ve lived here.

With the help of local historians, such as Walter Ferree and Vivian Hench, who have written histories of State College,  plus many primary and secondary sources, including but not limited to maps from city planners and letters between key community figures, we can answer these questions:

• Where did the names of the streets we live on come from?
• How did these streets get their names?
• Why should we cherish and celebrate these streets as a part of our neighborhood’s culture?

This is the story of how these streets came to be, from simple dirt roads in the beginning, to the paved ones of a growing town, all the way to being developed into thoroughfares that many people walk and drive on every single day. These are the streets of the Highlands.

Simple Beginnings on Simple Roads

In the 1850’s, the Pennsylvania Agricultural Society began efforts to establish a higher education agricultural school in the state. On February 22, 1855, Governor James Pollock signed the charter that would establish the Farmer’s High School. A 200 acre donation made by James Irvin, a former congressman who represented Centre County, assured that the Farmers’ High School would be located in Centre County. James Irvin, in 1855, was the owner of the Centre Furnace, an iron-making facility. Irvin, and his then brother-in-law and iron making business partner, Moses Thompson, at the time supported the establishment of the school.

It was purposely put in an extremely rural part of Centre County on farmland where most of the trees had been felled to fuel the iron making operation of Centre Furnace. The closest communities would be Bellefonte and Boalsburg, several miles away. With Mount Nittany in the background, the new school was situated in a picturesque location, a location that would in time attract a growing population³.

In the decades following the establishment of the college, a once rural farmland area consisting of only a few families became a community with hundreds of settlers. With this came designated roads, which were not yet paved and were in poor condition. In 1859 just 10 families lived in a nascent community; in the mid-1890’s, the town population was a little over 400 residents⁴.

In Walter Ferree’s 1932 Master’s thesis, An Introduction to the History of State College, Ferree depicts the  elements of this latter 1800’s growth. In his thesis, Ferree includes a [see FIGURE 1] map showing the land ownership in the 1860s. This map appears in two dimensions: the street layout of downtown State College in the early decades of the 20th century— and, overlaying the street layout, the patterns of land ownership in 1860 during the earliest days of the Farmer’s High School.

What the reader can take away from this historical map is the humble rural origins of State College—and that the town’s land was owned, at the outset, by just 10 families. Included here are names such as Samuel Garner who owned a farm near the current corner of Garner and Foster⁵.

Other recognizable names would be James Thompson and William Foster. That’s all State College was back then: just a small town next to a small campus, small number of families, surrounded by vast farmlands, fields, and forest.

Another historical map [FIGURE 2] —likely dated in the 1890s— shows a very early planned section of what most would now call “Downtown” in State College, but for the purposes here, these are the first planned streets of what would later expand into the Highlands.

The first streets we see here that would be considered a part of the Highlands, running north to south are marked as Pugh Street, Allen Street, Fraser (then “Frazier”) Street, and Burrowes (then “Burrows”) Street. To this day, Pugh, and Allen run the entire width of the Highlands and have been home to households and businesses for over a hundred years.

Also evident in this historical map of State College are the four streets mentioned above named after the first four presidents of Penn State, with each successor being to the west of his predecessor. The only change from this map was that Hamilton Avenue would eventually be located more to the south while Beaver Avenue (named after Civil War veteran and Pennsylvanian governor James A. Beaver) would later be established. The 5th and 6th Presidents of Penn State were James Calder (for which Calder Alley is named) and Joseph Shortlidge (for which Shortlidge road on campus is named).

However, there is probably not a president in Penn State’s history as impactful as George W. Atherton, who became the 7th and longest serving president at Penn State. He also served as the name-origin of Atherton Street, which defines the western border of the Highlands and stretches several miles from north to south across the entirety of State College’s boundaries and beyond.

The most well-known presidents of Penn State are undoubtedly Evan Pugh, the first president, and George Atherton, the longest serving president and also called the “Second Founder” of Penn State⁶. Evan Pugh was a former blacksmith apprentice, who was appointed in 1859 to become the Farmers’ High School first president. During this time, Evan Pugh worked tirelessly as the first leader of the new institution, which would benefit from the federal Land Grant Acts⁷.

Evan Pugh’s presidency occurred during the time of the largest unrest in the history of the country, with the Civil War raging and the very real prospect of a Confederate invasion. This happened with General Robert E. Lee’s incursion into Pennsylvania in the summer of 1863 resulting in the climactic Battle of Gettysburg, located only about 100 miles south of State College. Evan Pugh, having to deal with these immense academic, legislative, social, and leadership stresses likely developed a weakening of his immune system, causing him to pass away at the young age of 36 while still President of the College. 

His death caused immense sorrow in the community, demonstrated in newspapers at the time of his passing⁸. Such a tribute follows:

“…To his unwearied and cordial devotion to our interests, and his quick and clear perception of our needs, is largely due the success which has thus far attended us; and whatever measure of usefulness may in future attend our career, we deeply feel that upon all that future will be impressed the stamp of his character and labor.”

How does this tie into the Highlands? Well, it is seen in the planning of Pugh Street placed in the center of town⁹, and in many ways, the center of the Highlands. For example, when looking at a modern-day map of the Highlands, there are nine streets that run south from Beaver Avenue, and as referenced before, there are four streets to the west of Pugh Street named after Penn State presidents Allen, Fraser, Burrowes, and Atherton.

Then, there are four streets to the east of Pugh Street that are named Locust Lane, Garner Street, Hetzel Street, and High Street. The median of all nine (Pugh Street) runs through the entire width of the Highlands and eventually intersects with Atherton Street. Ordinance 12, passed by the State College Borough on October 28, 1897, created and erected Pugh Street¹⁰.

George W. Atherton assumed the presidency of a struggling Penn State after the 1882 Pennsylvanian gubernatorial election in which Democrat Robert E. Pattison defeated Republican (and noted supporter of Penn State) James A. Beaver. Pattison wanted to fire the school’s faculty of the engineering and linguistics departments at the time and return Penn State to its strictly agricultural vocational focus of the early Farmers’ High School days.

Atherton managed to convince the trustees to reject Pattison’s request, believing that it would be better for the college to embrace an inclusion of many studies instead of returning to the original curriculum of the college. For example, in 1896 he reinstituted the curriculum which solidified the presence of a liberal arts education. There was also an expansion of the campus’ physical presence with the introduction of buildings like the Botany Building, the Armory, and the Chemistry and Physics Building.

Under President Atherton’s leadership, the college maintained a consistent and strong enrollment, as well as being recognized across the region for its excellence and extensive curriculum. At the time of the Borough’s incorporation, George Atherton managed to have “Atherton Street” named after him while he was still serving as President! The creation of Atherton Street was made official by Town Council on September 23rd, 1897 with the passage of Ordinance 15 [FIGURE 3]. Atherton Street was only a block long from College Avenue to Beaver Avenue, but it eventually expanded to the road we know today—a road that runs the entire length of the State College!

Atherton Street today marks the western border of the Highlands and intersects with many other well-known Highlands streets. The prominence of Atherton Street, then, is a fitting testament to President Atherton’s extraordinary contributions in restoring and advancing a then-struggling Penn State¹¹.

The late 1800s growth of the Highlands is closely connected to the broader growth of the college itself, of which much thanks goes to the tireless efforts of Evan Pugh and George Atherton. Today, these two men are forever memorialized in the community with their street names.

The Road to the Growth of the Highlands

Despite the prior section’s emphasis on Penn State’s first presidents and their efforts, State College ultimately is not the same entity as the college. It isn’t run by presidents or a board of trustees, but has its own local government. While many individuals naturally had connections to Penn State, some also contributed to the creation and growth of the town of State College itself. This is where names such as James Irvin, John Hamilton, William G. Waring, John T. McCormick come into frame.

James Irvin came from Bellefonte and with Moses Thompson who owned the Centre Furnace Mansion, which still stands today. Irvin’s offer was the aforementioned 200 acres of land, leading to the creation of Penn State¹². Irvin Avenue is named after him.

William G. Waring was the original groundskeeper at Penn State. Waring was appointed as the professor of horticulture at the inception of Penn State. He was the Principal of Faculty and helped build the iconic Old Main Building¹³. Waring Avenue is named after him.

John Hamilton, whom we will discuss in more detail later, used to be a student at Penn State, and became a faculty member in 1871. Not only was John Hamilton a professor, but he also became the treasurer of Penn State, a title he would hold for 37 years¹⁴. Hamilton Avenue is named after him.

John T. McCormick was a man of many roles. Throughout his life he was a professor, on the board of directors for the First National Bank in State College¹⁵, and President of State College Borough Council¹⁶. McCormick Avenue is named after him.

As readers of Hearts in the Highlands recall in Ishaan Anavkar’s 2022 article (titled, What Came Before the Highlands?), William G. Waring and William Foster—in 1861—owned sizable portions of the lands that would comprise the Highlands¹⁷.

William Foster is member of the Foster family.  Foster, like McCormick, served on the board of directors for the First National Bank as well as being a borough council member once. The Foster farm house, built around 1860 and the oldest property in the Highlands, was originally located on W. Fairmount Avenue, but was moved to its current location on W. Prospect in 1917. Foster Avenue is named after the Foster family¹⁸.

However, special attention in this section is given to John Hamilton. Special thanks to the folks at the Centre County Historical Society for their help¹⁹. John Hamilton’s story in relation to the Highlands is notable as he and his wife lived in what we know today is the Highlands Historic District^{20 21 22}.

Who was Hamilton’s wife? Her name was Elizabeth Thompson, the daughter of Moses Thompson, whose partner in the iron-making business was James Irvin. John Hamilton and his wife Elizabeth bought the land that they lived on from William G. Waring²³.

This ties in John Hamilton to several key figures associated with both the growth of the college and State College. It was largely through Hamilton’s efforts that the Highlands’ infrastructure mirrored the growth of the Borough’s. Although the Highlands is now part of the Borough, back then John Hamilton had to make sure the Highlands would be able to progress alongside the Borough.

How do we know this? From documents related to the installation of a sewage system.  Yes, an odd thing to think about at first, but the importance of a sewer system in a neighborhood should not be underestimated. For with it comes the sanitary issues and a water supply to support a town as it continues to grow in both population and land size. After Hamilton penned a letter to Samuel Gibson Dixon, the then commissioner of health at the State at the time, the Highlands sewage plan was ultimately connected to the Borough’s, with Dixon approving the plan²⁴.

FIGURE 4 reflects a letter from Samuel Gibson Dixon wrote to John Hamilton, dated September 23, 1913, regarding the expansion of the sewer system. The letter goes over the dimensions and need for the sewer system planning. At the end of the letter, Dixon gives his seal of approval for the sewage system plan, which precedes the accurate prediction of the population growth.

To follow up on this event was Ordinance 229 [FIGURE 5], which improved and expanded the water supply. This happened roughly over 25 years later, which was accurately predicted in the same letter by Dixon when State College had a population of around 6,000 by 1940.

It is with these efforts that we have the Highlands that we know of today. John Hamilton may have not been a council member until 1915²⁵, but his heart and mind were always in the effort to support and improve the “Highlands” neighborhood.

To this day, the house that John and Elizabeth Hamilton lived in, a Queen Anne style farmhouse built in 1890, designed by Bellefonte architect Robert Cole and coincidentally named “The Highlands” (perhaps the origin of the name of the neighborhood?) by the owners is now the current Delta Upsilon fraternity located at 229 Locust Lane. The farm that they owned is where the current Acacia fraternity is located (234 Locust Lane).

Thus, the memory of the Hamiltons will forever be memorialized here in the Highlands.

The Streets We Come to Know and Love

After knowing the origins of the names of streets in the Highlands, has one ever thought of the questions that they might have when exploring the neighborhood? For example, the Borough of State College has a practice of separating addresses on streets through given cardinal directions, such as “North/South Atherton Street” or “East/West College Avenue”?

Just as shown before in the naming and development of streets, we can see the implementation of these cardinal directions in the town’s ordinances! State College Borough Council’s Ordinance 120, passed on July 25, 1932 [FIGURE 6] signified the expansion of Atherton Street and the creation of the directional title of “South Atherton Street.”

Today, there are several streets located within the Highlands that have cardinal directions to specify the location of the street geographically. The expansions of Atherton Street—evident in the creation of “South” and “North” Atherton Street—signify in a concrete way the evolution of the town from a simple community to the town where approximately 40,000 residents and students alike can call home. This section will be dedicated to this very development.

As we observed earlier in [FIGURE 3], the text in the late 19th century Borough Ordinances was somewhat short and sweet. As evidenced by the growing industrialization that was happening in the nation over the early and mid decades of the 20th century—which incidentally fits with George Atherton’s vision of the growing importance of Penn State—the Ordinances adopted a much more mathematical and scientific language.

This mathematical “engineering” language is evident in the Borough’s Ordinance 125 dated September 19, 1932 [FIGURE 7] in which we see the laying out of other streets within the Highlands, not only being given cardinal directions, but the precise measurements of street width and length.

Noteworthy, too, is the length of Ordinance 125: five pages. Even though the heading of the Ordinance references the “Borough of State College” the majority of streets listed here are in the Highlands. In fact, I would wager that this Ordinance here might be the most important one shown thus far. It gives out the dimensions of what we know is the Highlands. It isn’t just fields with farms anymore. There is now a bustling town with an ever-expanding population living in it at this point and the streets have now been reconstructed for public usage.

However, the Highlands is so much more than just Pugh, Atherton, Hamilton, or Irvin. Hetzel Street (previously named Pine Street) is named after Ralph Hetzel, another Penn State President. During his tenure stretching from the 1920s to the 1940s, Hetzel continued to further Penn State’s nationwide recognition, and became the second longest serving President. 

The Hetzel Union Building (HUB) is also named after him. Garner Street is named after Samuel Garner, a notable landowner who owned land just south of where Hamilton did, and east of most of what we call Downtown today.

Locust Lane used to be called “Miles Street”, but was renamed to acknowledge the locust trees that grow in that area.

Fairmount Avenue is named for being the highest street in the area²⁶, supposedly back then you could have seen a great view of Mount Nittany. Fraser Street was even spelled “Frazier”, as indicated on some of the older maps of the area. It was just a casual misspelling of his name, that would later be corrected in the Borough’s 1963 Ordinance 633²⁷.

The Highlands streets are filled with hidden histories, and callbacks to eras that many remember or, on the other hand, may not be aware of, but as shown in these documents, the intention to remember these individuals was not lost.

Behind the Street Names: The Takeaway

What is the takeaway from this research? I would argue there are two perspectives: a historical perspective and a cultural one. State College is one of a kind. It is home to an acclaimed university that is called alma mater by hundreds of thousands of alumni. Typically, over 100,000 people come together on home football weekends to watch a game.  

How can we fully love what we call “Happy Valley” if we don’t remember the Penn State Presidents who genuinely cared about creating a university based on teaching Pennsylvanians and beyond or the locals who wanted to settle and build a community for its residents? Thankfully, as shown with the promises given to the community following Evan Pugh’s death, his memory would not be lost in history. Hence why so many streets across the Highlands are named after both Penn State and local residents as well.

There is also the cultural perspective. How lucky we are that the Highlands is generally seen as a walkable neighborhood? I could remember the names of “Allen Street” or “Pugh Street” long before I became a student; these streets are somehow embedded in the memories and culture here. The streets names are what make up the Highlands, both literally and figuratively. I hope you all can take a tour around the entire Highlands and take in the beauty of it all.

Shane McGinness is a fourth year student at The Pennsylvania State University. A third-generational Penn Stater, who is pursuing a major in History and a minor in Russian. He loves to hike with friends in the Penn State Outing Club (PSOC) and participates regularly in the Russian Studies Club. He loves studying Penn State sports and history. If you have any questions or remarks on this project, please contact him through email at: smm8448@psu.edu.

1. Derek Bannister, “Onward State: Penn State’s Enrollment Throughout History” Onward State 14th of February, 2017, OnwardState.Com. ↩︎
2. Sanborn Fire Insurance Maps: State College 1906, 1911, 1922, and 1929 https://libraries.psu.edu/about/collections/sanborn-fire-insurance-maps/state-college. ↩︎
3. Michael Bezilla, Penn State: An Illustrated History, (State College, Penn State University Press, 1991) Ch. 1. ↩︎
4. Walter Ferree, An Introduction to the History of State College, Pennsylvania p. 5. ↩︎
5. Vivian Doty Hench The History of State College 1896-1946 p. 11. ↩︎
6. Penn State’s College of Agricultural Sciences, “George Atherton” https://agsci.psu.edu/about/history/george-atherton. ↩︎
7. Vivian Doty Hench The History of State College 1896-1946 p. 9. ↩︎
8. Thos. F. Rupel, E.B. Dysart, Wal. Pierce, “Death of Evan Pugh”, The Pittsburgh Post, 30th of April, 1864. ↩︎
9. Vivian Doty Hench The History of State College 1896-1946 p. 21. ↩︎
10. “Ordinance 12.” State College Borough Council (28 Oct. 1897). ↩︎
11. Michael Bezilla, Penn State: An Illustrated History, (State College, Penn State University Press, 1991) Ch. 1. ↩︎
12. Id. ↩︎
13. Centre County Historical Society, “William G. Waring”, 20 May, 2021 https://centrehistory.org/article/william-g-waring/. ↩︎
14. Hamilton, John, The Life of John Hamilton, Centre County Historical Society Collections, State College, p. 53-54. ↩︎
15. Jo Chesworth, Story of the Century, Borough of State College, 1995 p. 40. ↩︎
16. Arnold Addison, In The Service of This Borough: Issues and Personalities in the First 100 Years of State College Government, p. 9-13. ↩︎
17. Ishaan Anavkar, “What Came Before the Highlands?”, Hearts in the Highlands, HH2022, https://statecollegehighlands.org/what-came-before-the-highlands/. ↩︎
18. Walter Ferree, An Introduction to the History of State College, Pennsylvania p. 25. ↩︎
19. The CCHS is located in the Centre Furnace Mansion, which is the former residence of ironmaster Moses Thompson, and specializes, as part of its mission, in chronicling the lives, memories, and contributions of the Irvin-Thompson-Hamilton-Henszey families. ↩︎
20. Jo Chesworth, Story of the Century, Borough of State College, 1995 p. 16. ↩︎
21. Ishaan Anavkar, “What Came Before the Highlands?”, Hearts in the Highlands, HH2022, https://statecollegehighlands.org/what-came-before-the-highlands/. ↩︎
22. Samuel Dixon, “Letter to John Hamilton”, 23 Sept. 1913, p. 2. ↩︎
23. Jo Chesworth, Story of the Century, Borough of State College, 1995 p. 16. ↩︎
24. Samuel Dixon, “Letter to John Hamilton”, 23 Sept. 1913, p. 7-14. ↩︎
25. Arnold Addison, In The Service of This Borough: Issues and Personalities in the First 100 Years of State College Government, p. 12. ↩︎
26. Walter Ferree, An Introduction to the History of State College, Pennsylvania p. 25. ↩︎
27. “Ordinance 633.” State College Borough Council (5 June 1963). ↩︎