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Centre Daily Times May 23 2005
Looking Back: 'Strychnine Corner' housed Bellefonte's rowdy
By Rich Kerstetter; rkerstet@centredaily.com
"During the tumultuous period after the Civil War, respectable residents of Bellefonte, for the most part, avoided the intersection of West Bishop and South Allegheny streets at night.
It was, as the late historian Hugh Manchester noted, "the most dangerous place after dark in Bellefonte ... where most of Bellefonte's bars were concentrated and the toughs of the town gathered."
Folks called it "Strychnine Corner," and "most people stayed clear of the area after the sun went down, knowing that the area was a magnet for undesirables," Manchester wrote in his "The Big Spring" column in the Centre Daily Times in January 1994.
The corner was "the center of chicanery and other carrying-on" in the mid-1800s, according to the editors of "Bellefonte: Fountain of Governors."
The county seat, in the 1870s, was buzzing with activity.
"It is difficult, a century later, to offer reflections that 'keep pace' with the tempo of those times," "Fountain of Governors" said.
"Lumbering, coal mining and the limestone quarrying and processing plants were moving ahead and, along with them, the railroads were adding more tracks."
The Undine Fire Company organized in 1871; later that year, the reorganized Logan Hose Company moved into a building on Howard Street. About the same time, William Mills -- grandfather of the famous singing Mills Brothers -- opened his barbershop at 213 W. High St.
Unrestrained development and freewheeling capitalism have their downsides, however.
"Bellefonte did not escape the inflation dilemma. Valentine & Thomas (iron works) closed temporarily and with some strikers threatening violence at the plant and some mis-direction on the part of management at the company store -- then in the western end of Bush Arcade -- the town was in an uproar," "Fountain of Governors" proclaimed.
"Crowds paraded the streets for two days. No serious damage was reported, but frequent 'delays' at Strychnine Corner's saloons kept the crowd spirited."
Revelers heeded an appeal from the town burgess for calm -- for a few hours.
"But early the next day the mob had re-grouped and Sheriff Levi Munson had to organize a posse of 100 deputies to scatter and keep the crowd separated through the day," according to the account in "Fountain of Governors."
The "chicanery and other carrying-on" at Strychnine Corner did not escape the attention of the borough fathers.
"Council took note of the situation and organized the town's first police force, with a recent arrival, James A. Beaver, as chief of police," Manchester wrote. "Beaver and his small force patrolled the area and curbed much of the violence."
Beaver -- known by most people today for the football stadium that bears his name -- was born near Millerstown but came to Bellefonte, "attracted ... by its reputation as a business, industry and political hub of the commonwealth," "Fountain of Governors" explained.
He soon became involved in seemingly everything: He practiced law, served as a church leader, rose to the rank of general in the Union Army, sat on the board of Pennsylvania State College and became its president, was elected governor of Pennsylvania in 1887, won acclaim for his leadership during the Johnstown Flood in 1889, and had numerous business interests in Bellefonte.
But not even the indomitable Beaver could totally solve the chronic problem at Strychnine Corner. That job fell to an arsonist.
"The matter was finally settled," Manchester wrote, "when a deliberately set fire destroyed the area in March 1885."
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