The Lumber Heritage Region’s Mini-Grant Program, financed by DCNR and the Heritage Area Program Fund, announces Jefferson County History Center’s Brookville Historic Interpretive Panels Project has been selected for funding. JCHC plans to revamp fourteen existing panels and add 6 new panels along Main Street. The original panels are now14 years old and have seen their share of weather wear and tear.
Grant funding for this project will replace theoriginal14 interpretive panels with newly redesigned, visually attractive photos and graphics. Funding is restricted for panel development, manufacture of new frames and installation of the panels at key locations along Brookville’s Main Street.
Using late 19th and early 20th century photographs and other historical information, these signs will provide the observer a distinct then-and-now view of the downtown Brookville Historic District and serve as the centerpiece of an interpretative self-guided walking tour that will be of educational and historical interest to both residents and visitors by showing how the community developed and changed through time.
JCHC Staff will conduct historic research, retrieving archived photos and development of graphics to update the original panels and research & development of the six new panels. The new panels planned are:
(1) The Matson, Edelblute-Pearsall (now the Jefferson County History Center) and Parker Blood (“IOOF”) Buildings in the first block east of the Courthouse
(2) The Templeton-McKnight House which most recently housed the Jeffersonian Democrat newspaper office.
(3) Matson & Truman Queen Anne houses at the northeast end of Main Street
(4) The Hall House, formerly our first Rebecca M. Arthurs Library, now a B&B
(5) The Carrier Inn (a Victorian style), E.B. Henderson House (a Queen Anne style) and Daniel English House
(6) The Garrison House and Dr. Clark House at the northwest end of Main Street
We are working with the Jefferson County Director of Tourism, Mary Milford and videographer Kelly Vandervort of Vort Media to integrate brief videos of the interpretive panels, using a live QR code on the panels that can be scanned by tourists using their smart phones.
We are planning to install all panels in Spring 2026.
“This project is financed by a grant from the Community Conservation Partnerships Program, Heritage Area Program Fund, under the administration of the Pennsylvania Department of Conservation and Natural Resources, Bureau of Recreation and Conservation.”
