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Coburn
Centre Daily Times January 21 2003, C1, C2
Little bit of history
By Rich Kerstetter; rkerstet@centredaily.com
"Business was brisk Saturday at the Coburn post office, but few people were thinking about an anniversary. "We're having a skating party down here tonight, but not for that," said Lynda McClintic, accompanied by her 3-year-old niece Harley, who was bundled up against the cold.
"What did we just celebrate not too long ago?" McClintic asked.
That would have been the sesquicentennial of Penn Township; the municipality was established in 1844 and turned 150 nine years ago.
But this week marks another historic milestone. On Jan. 24, 1878 - 125 years ago - the first post office opened in Coburn, officially giving birth to the town.
A settlement existed at the confluence of Penns, Pine and Elk creeks long before the U.S. Postal Service arrived. It was initially called The Forks and later Kerstetter's Landing for the family that built the arks that floated produce from Penns and Brush valleys farms downstream to the Susquehanna River in Selinsgrove and beyond.
Then came the railroad and with it an explosion of building and commerce.
At one time, with four passenger trains and two freight trains stopping at Coburn Station every day, the town could boast of its five grocery and dry-goods stores, a snitz or dried-apple factory, two bottling plants (one for milk and the other for soft drinks), a hotel, a planing mill and scores of other businesses.
But the trains stopped running in 1972. Hurricane Agnes was just a tropical storm when it reached central Pennsylvania, but it still had enough fury and moisture to unleash the most devastating flood in the region since 1936 or perhaps 1889. The waters washed out the tracks west of town, killing a local rail industry that was already critically ill.
Coburn, though no longer a boom town, survived. Friday, it officially turns 125, and if no one else cares to celebrate, local historian Guy Rachau will. He even has a baseball cap -- the only one of its kind -- that proclaims Coburn's quasquicentennial, 1878 to 2003.
"He likes that kind of stuff," McClintic said as she prepared to leave the post office. "Tradition, nostalgia, whatever you want to call it."
Rachau calls it history and, since his retirement from the insurance and investment business five years ago, it occupies much of his time.
"Now, my full-time job is music -- music and a little bit of history," he explained.
After a brief pause to glance at the books and photos spread before him on his dining-room table, Rachau smiled.
"A lot of history, actually," he said.
Recalling the past
Billie Jo Pecht, filling in at the post office Saturday for postmaster Donald Wolfe, didn't know of anything special being planned for this week's anniversary. She was, however, aware of the date's historical significance.
"I heard Guy Rachau talking about it," she said.
Rachau, perhaps better known for his musical pursuits as leader of the Little German Band, Coburn Brass and the Penns Valley Men's Chorus, grew up on a farm near Farmers Mills and didn't move to Coburn until he was getting out of the Navy.
His wife, Doris, however, is a Coburn native, descending from the Kerstetter family that built the arks for Penns Creek.
She also worked in the post office when her mother, Sara Kerstetter, was postmaster and the mailboxes were in the same building as their home.
"But he knows more about the history and cares more about it than I do, and I was born here," Doris said.
"I'm just interested in it," her husband admitted.
"And," he said, "I think everyone should be interested in it, but most of the older folks are starting to die off and the younger ones moving in don't care that much, I guess."
David Braucht still cares.
Braucht, who lives between Coburn and Millheim, remembers that on the way to school, he and his brother would drop off lunch and a jar of coffee at the train station for their father, Norman, who was a fireman and later engineer on the railroad.
"He'd start out early in the morning and go down to Northumberland. You wouldn't believe the trains they had in the yard there," Braucht said. "Then they'd come back up through -- and he'd pick up his lunch -- go up to Milesburg and turn around there and come back."
A generation earlier, Norman Braucht's father skidded logs to the railroad for the Meyer Lumber Co.
"He had one logbook entry where he skidded logs for eight hours and got 80 cents. That's how much he made," Braucht said of his grandfather.
Braucht remembers when Coburn had several bakeries, competing grocery stores and three churches.
Now, only the United Methodist congregation remains active. Behind the church, where the Coburn Elementary School once stood, is where the new post office, opened in January 2000, now sits.
For the post office -- and the town -- Friday marks its quasquicentennial.
"I first heard that word on TV and then looked it up on the Internet," explained Rachau, who enjoys telling the story of his adopted hometown.
"Coburn was named for James Coburn, who lived in Aaronsburg and was on the board of the railroad," Rachau said.
It was Coburn who persuaded his fellow board members to route the Lewisburg and Tyrone Railroad through The Forks.
The first train, and excursion from Lewisburg to Spring Mills, rolled through town on July 4, 1877.
The railroad station, which sat just below where Rachau's home is located, closed in 1959. Three years later it was torn down and service to the east eventually slowed to a halt. But it was left to Tropical Storm Agnes in 1972 to finally sound the final whistle for rail traffic through Coburn.
The population now hovers around 850. Many of the Victorian homes now sport bright colors. And most of the businesses are gone -- mainly bed and breakfasts and specialty shops, many catering to the folks who still come to the area to fish, remain.
Nevertheless, Rachau still remembers. So does Braucht and other longtime Coburn-area residents such as Wendell "Chappie" Musser. But Rachau couldn't stir up enough interest for much of a quasquicentennial celebration this year.
He understands, but still believes in the importance of remembering and preserving the past.
"It's like the old saying," Rachau explained. " 'If you don't know where you came from, how do you know where you're going?' "
Rich Kerstetter can be reached at 235-3928.
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