Johnstown was an important shipping station on the canal connecting Philadelphia and Pittsburgh. An interesting feature now remaining is the canal tunnel at bend of the Conemaugh, four miles east of Johnstown; second such tunnel built in America; constructed by the state about 1828 or 1830; the first is in Lebanon County, made in 1827. The Carnegie Library received by bequest from James M. Swank, historian and iron and steel statistician, his books and historical relics. Franklin Street Methodist Episcopal Church, Gothic, gray sandstone; the sills under the windows of the auditorium are dressed stones from the abandoned Pennsylvania Canal Locks, near site of the present Pennsylvania Railroad station; architect, George Fritz. First Presbyterian Church, at the corner of Walnut and Lincoln Streets, dedicated, 1913; modified English [Illustration: THE GAP BELOW JOHNSTOWN] Gothic, Cleveland gray sandstone and green tile, architects, Badgley & Nicholas, Cleveland. The Cambria Steel Company began in 1840, when George S. King and David Stewart discovered a vein of iron ore about fifteen inches thick, on the Laurel Run, west of Johnstown; they built the first blast furnace in Cambria County in 1842, calling it the Cambria Furnace; in 1843 Dr. Peter Shoenberger bought out David Stewart’s interest; he was the great ironmaster of his time, conducting a chain of furnaces, forges and rolling mills, stretching almost 500 miles, from the old Marietta furnace in Lancaster to the Wheeling, West Virginia, iron works. The Cambria Iron Works were completed in 1853, and sold to a syndicate of Philadelphians who selected Matthew Newkirk as president; in 1854 they rolled the first iron rails; the first steel rails in America were rolled here in 1867 from blooms imported from England. Iron is the county’s chief industry. [Illustration: CLEARFIELD COUNTY] XXXVIII CLEARFIELD COUNTY Formed March 26, 1804; named by the first settlers from a cleared field in the forest made by the Indians, site of “Chingleclamouche’s old Town,” said to have been the most considerable Indian village on the upper West Branch of the Susquehanna, now Clearfield Borough. The whole county is a continuous prospect of intensely picturesque scenery; surface mountainous, with ranges broken into innumerable, irregular spurs, indented by streams; from many hilltops views of the greater part of the county may be seen; the “Knobs,” its loftiest summit, is constantly in view, and the intermediate country, a panorama of natural beauty, ever changing in atmospheric effects; all the creeks, tributaries of the West Branch of the Susquehanna, have scenery which beggars description, a veritable feast for the painter, poet, and romancer; Moshannon and Clearfield Creeks had their beaver dams.