Bryan Donaldson’s Brick Town USA brings shop windows, factory floors and neighborhood gatherings into focus. These three areas now have new details on BricktownPA—and room for more voices, photographs and records.
01 · Downtown
The shops behind everyday errands.
02 · Working Life
The people who made more than brick.
03 · Neighborhoods
New homes and lasting friendships.
A Downtown, Store by Store
Now in the archive
Murphy’s 1953 move, Saxe’s Annex, Goodman’s hardware store, taxi service, groceries and the offices above the shops.
Explore the Beers Hotel and Alesi Hotel history—family owners, downtown shops, two fires and the 1989 redevelopment.
Read the 1950s shopping district
What we can add
A storefront-by-storefront walking history, matching each business to a building and a period. Dated advertisements, receipts, directories and family photographs would help establish addresses and changes of ownership.
Book starting point: printed pp. 33–36 (PDF pp. 41–44).
A Working Day in Mount Union
Now in the archive
A dedicated Greif history now connects factory photographs with documented jobs, worker biographies, expansion and the disputed chronology. Robin Footwear coverage includes its training program, expansion and reported closure.
What we can add
Former employees’ accounts, union records and payroll material can deepen the garment and shoe-worker histories. Original opening and closing notices are still needed to resolve the differing Greif dates.
Book starting point: printed pp. 87–88 and 92–94 (PDF pp. 97–98 and 102–104).
The Neighborhoods People Carried With Them
Now in the archive
Chestnut Terrace’s 1953 opening, Green Street Village’s reuse of industrial land, Taylor Apartments in 1976, and a sewing club that survived the removal of Ganister Hill.
What we can add
A before-and-after neighborhood feature linking company housing, new developments and community gathering places. Residents’ memories, club minutes, housing plans and identified family photographs can show how moving changed daily life and what friendships endured.
Book starting point: printed pp. 154–157 and 253–264 (PDF pp. 164–167 and 261–272).
Have a piece of one of these stories?
Include the business or neighborhood name, an approximate date, how you know the story, and the owner or photographer of any image. Even one identified person or storefront can help connect the record.
About the Source
Bryan D. Donaldson, Brick Town USA: Mount Union, Pa., volume 1, first printing December 2006; the supplied scan also lists a March 2007 second printing. Citations identify printed pages and positions within the supplied 274-page PDF because the scan’s page offset changes.
The book brings together photographs, recollections and excerpts from earlier publications. Items credited to The Huntingdon Daily News are identified as reproduced accounts; their appearance here is not independent corroboration of the same newspaper source. Club recollections and Donaldson’s personal memories remain attributed as such. New text is summarized in original wording; the book’s pages and photographs have not been republished.
See the differing brick-production estimates. Exact dates and figures that the source does not settle remain open research questions.