Vintondale

Vintondale, located in Cambria County, holds a unique position in history. It was a coal-mining town with a notorious reputation based on an antiunion legacy that lasted until the New Deal. Warren Delano, maternal uncle of Pres. Franklin Delano Roosevelt, was the founder and owner of the company town. Through vintage photographs, Vintondale traces the area’s history from when the first coal was shipped in 1894 until the No. 6 mine was closed in 1968. It includes such Vintondale claims to fame as the first long-wall mining operation, lawsuits by the fledgling American Civil Liberties Union in the 1920s, a 1940 Chapter 13 bankruptcy and reorganization, and a homegrown terrorist called Friend of a Friend. Today the sleepy borough belies its past as the center of the bustling Ghost Town Trail and as a recreation area.