Bald Eagle Valley

The valley runs from Port Matilda down to Lock Haven, and it includes most of the Bald Eagle Area School District and Bald Eagle Township. Bald Eagle State Park is in the valley; the park includes the Joseph Foster Sayers Reservoir around Howard, a prominent topographic feature formed by damming Bald Eagle Creek.

Principal towns in the Bald Eagle Valley

From southwest to northeast, downstream along Bald Eagle Creek:

• Port Matilda
• Julian
• Unionville
• Milesburg
• Howard
• Beech Creek
• Mill Hall
• Lock Haven

Agriculture

In the upper valley, Bald Eagle Creek runs at the foot of the ridge in a narrow floodplain. Long narrow farm fields lie along the river, and along the perpendicular side valleys of the creek's tributaries. Smaller irregular sloped fields also lie on the small hills near the floodplain. Further downstream, the floodplain becomes wider, and larger farm fields are found there. Between the floodplain and the Allegheny Plateau, there are two distinct regions. Nearer the floodplain, there are steeper wooded hills, generally not suitable for farming. Closer to the plateau, there are more gently rolling hills, with fields and pastures mixed with woodlots. Corn, hay, alfalfa, and winter wheat are crops commonly grown in the valley.

Transportation

Roads

U.S. Route 220 Alternate, the main route along the valley, ran along the floodplain, but the main route designation has been relocated to the Nittany Valley north of Port Matilda in conjunction with the ongoing extension of Interstate 99 to Interstate 80. The road north of there is now known as U.S. 220 Alternate. I-80 runs east-west across the valley between Snow Shoe and Bellefonte. U.S. Route 322, Skytop Mountain Road, also crosses the valley through Port Matilda, and across the ridge in a cut at "Skytop". I-99 runs through the upper valley mostly along the ridge, then wraps around Port Matilda to pick up U.S. 322 in a tandem alignment, before crossing the ridge in the now expanded Skytop cut.

Canal

The Bald Eagle and Spring Creek Navigation Company began building up the Bald Eagle Valley from Lock Haven in 1834. It reached Howard in 1837, but construction stalled, and it only reached Milesburg in 1847 and Bellefonte in 1848. Initially successful, the canal began to face railroad competition during the Civil War, and was not rebuilt after its destruction by flooding in 1865.

Rail

Construction began in 1858 on Centre County's first railroad, the

The Pennsylvania Railroad financed the construction of the Bald Eagle Valley Railroad line through the valley, along the floodplain from Tyrone to Lock Haven. When completed in 1865, it used the Bellefonte & Snow Shoe Railroad track between Wingate and Milesburg. The Pennsylvania Railroad bought the Bellefonte & Snow Shoe Railroad in 1881, making its former line the Snow Shoe and Bellefonte branches. The Snow Shoe branch has been abandoned, but the Nittany and Bald Eagle Railroad shortline still runs the lines from Tyrone to Lock Haven and Bellefonte.

Air

Bald Eagle Valley is in the western part of the

The oldest rock layers from deep within the eroded mountain are now exposed on the east side of the Bald Eagle ridge. Younger rocks from the outer layers of the arch are exposed in the Bald Eagle Valley, with the youngest at the foot of the Allegheny Front. The rock layers in the valley were folded from horizontal to almost vertical, and now read like pages in a geologic history book covering the entire Devonian period. The vertical attitude of the rocks also contributes to the straightness of the valley.^[3]

Erosion resistant

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Bald Eagle Valley.

References

41°00′N 77°45′W / 41.0°N 77.75°W / 41.0; -77.75