A Day in Brownsville, PA including the haunted Nemacolin Castle
Overview
A day in Brownsville, PA is just a pleasant and enjoyable way to spend a day. So many different things to do and see including four different museums, the first cast iron bridge build in the United States, and birth place of Philander C. Knox (U.S. Attorney General, Senator, and Secretary of State) and astronomer John Brashear.
Nemacolin Castle or Bowman’s Castle
Located at 136 Front Street, Brownsville, PA 15417. Nemacolin Castle is from not just one time period but several.
I love this place but I also went during the day time and missed the haunted tours. It has both a wonderful history and the paranormal phenomena has been Bio Channel’s TV show “My Ghost Story”.
Started as a trading post by Jacob Bowman just after the American Revolutionary War in the 1780’s. Jacob Bowman started constructing addition rooms to his house as his business efforts took off and each generation added more rooms.
Jacob Bowman was appointed by George Washington as the Brownsville’s first postmaster. He founded the Monongahela Bank which one of his son’s took over. He had nine children. He also had many other businesses interest and did lots of community services in the Brownsville area.
The Bowman family would live and die here for three generations until around the 1950’s when it was purchased by the Brownsville Historical Society.
A tour of this place takes about an hour and your are taken from the front of the building which was the trading post during the Colonial times to the extensions of the properties through the Victorian age. It is like walking through time with a tour guide talking about all the different items and history including outfits, toys, glass, and views of the river.
As you walk through the original stone house to the modern Victorian era; you can see how building materials and styles change.
The twenty-two furnished rooms tour include furniture from the all the different era of American history through the Victorian age. One of the rooms in the house was used just for the Bishop when he visited to the area.
As you travel through the decades, you can see hints of the change from gas lighting to electric lighting and small closets to walk in closets. Taxes were assessed based on the number of rooms on a property. If you would stand up in the closet, then you had to pay taxes on it as if it was a room. To his and her closets as this tax was lifted.
The most important item to look at in each area is the floors. The floors show how the family riches increased from plain thick wood planks to the Victoria era with elaborate complicated designs.
The house across the yard from the Castle was the Black Horse Tavern that once housed all American government documents for the one of the Revolutionary War. Today, it is a private residence. Please don’t disturbed them when your visiting.
Frank L. Melega Art Museum
Located at 71 Market Street, Brownsville, PA 15417, Frank L. Melega Art Museum is just below the Nemacolin Castle. If you want to walk down the steps on the right side of the Castle or the road to the left side of the Castle, then you will find the Museum and Flatiron Heritage Center Museum and Visitor Center, downtown Brownsville, and Dunlap Creek Bridge. The walk from the Castle to the Dunlap Creek Bridge is in my estimated less then a mile and a lot easier on a nice day the driving down.
Frank L Melega work and local artist items are held in this museum and some items are for sell. I got a postcard since I was traveling. It is also next to the Flatiron Heritage Center Museum & Visitor Center.
The day that I visited, several relatives and/or friends of Frank L Melega and other artiest were around the place to chat with. Frank Melega was the son of a coal miner and become the most famous artist depicting the Southwestern Pennsylvania coal and coke era.
Flatiron Heritage Center Museum & Visitor Center
Located in the same building as Frank L Melega Museum is the Flatiron Heritage Center Museum & Visitor Center. This is very small and they are getting more and more items all the time. It has the history with the National Road and Industrial Era and then the coal and coke industry.
They also have all the old high school year books, steamboat replicas and items showing the early transportation methods. It is very cool.
Three Bridges including the first Iron Cast Bridge in America & Downtown
There are three bridges in Brownsville which are described here: two have historical significant and the other one is just big.
Dunlap Creek Bridge is America’s First Cast Iron Bridge. It was constructed from 1836 to 1839 on the National Road in Brownsville, Pennsylvania. It replaced the first two that collapsed between 1808 and 1820. The third bridge had to be replaced in 1832.
The Brownsville Bridge, or the Intercounty Bridge, is a truss bridge was completed in 1914 to replaced a wooden structure that had been build in 1831. This bridge was on the National Road. I just can’t image that this was once a wooden bridge.
The Brownsville High Level Bridge is just big. It is so large and blue. It was built in 1960 to redirect traffic away from downtown Brownsville and over the Monongahela River on route 40.
Monongahela River, Railroad, and Transportation Museum
The Monongahela River, Railroad, and Transportation Museum is located at 412 Church Street, Brownsville, PA 15417. It was closed then I was around and it does not look like it is open all the time. But check it out when you are around to see if it is open and if not, look around this area for other things that are neat like the Brownsville General Hospital.
Other places of interest in Brownsville, PA
Taking a ride around the town, you can see churches every where. St. Peter’s Church is open for tours by appointment only, call 724-785-7781. The church was built in 1845. St. Nicholas Byzantine Catholic Church is directly across from the Castle. St. Ellien’s Orthodox Church was build in 1917.
I did not stop as time was running low but the churches tower over the rest of the town. Also, don’t miss the stone church which is closed but it is on the same street and block as the Monongahela River, Railroad, and Transportation Museum.
Also check out the Brownsville General Hospital and Horner Nurses Home across the street. It is not longer open but looking at how big it is and modern by the standards of when it was built. Built some time around 1910, it was abandon in the early 1980’s due to populations decreasing as industry moved out of the area as well as the cities youth.
The Downtown area is complete dead but just down from the Castle are two major banks and the third is on the other side of the Dunlap Creek Bridge. These banks show how important this town was to the growth of the steamboat, railroad, and transportation industry.
Philander Knox was born in Brownsville. He was a Attorney General and a Senator for the United States. Other famous people from Brownsville include John Brashear (Astronomer), Vincent Colaiuta (Jazz-rock-pop drummer), Richard Gary Colbert (4 star admiral in US Navy), Doug Dascenzo (Outfielder for the Cubs, Rangers, and Padres), Bill Eadie (WWF), Andy Linden (Indy car driver), Joe Taffoni (NFL player), Andy Gresh (Talk show host), and others.
If you are looking for a nice lunch or dinner, try Rye’s Restaurant and Bar in West Brownsville. I found this place. The hamburger was wonderful. The salad large enough for two with the Pittsburgh french fries on top.
History Brief-Brownsville
Brownsville served as the river gateway to the West. The community build boats from 1811 to 1888, including the first steamboat, named Enterprise, which was powerful enough to travel down the Mississippi River to New Orleans and back.
Brownsville declined as an important shipyard as the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad grow but they reinvented themselves as a railroad yard and coking center. During the 1940’s, the population was over 8,000 people. But by the 1970’s, Brownsville suffered a decline as the Rust Belt did with the steel industries decline.
By 2000, less then 3,000 people lived in Brownsville and the abandoned buildings included banks, businesses, and the Union Station. The younger generation is being lost to the big cities with better jobs.
But the history of Brownsville is that of a town which held all the important documents for the US to helping open the west to settlers to creating the steamboat for the Mississippi to becoming a hub for the Railroad to being a coking and the transportation hub for steel. The big question is how does Brownsville reinvent itself again? Or like so many important cities of our past, does it just fade away….