If you are driving up to Alum Bank, make sure to also visit Pleasantville. And also, if you have an interest in checking out Six Mile Run, don't forget to also check out Coaldale while you're there.
Those are only two examples of places whose names have changed over the years. And there's a simple explanation for most of these examples ~ the United States Postal Service. Throughout history, the residents of various communities have chosen names to represent their towns. The name might be chosen to honor the surname of the founding family, or it might be descriptive of the geography of the region.
In regard to Coaldale, the coal mining operations in the region greatly influenced the decision in naming the town. Unfortunately, the United States Postal Service refused to allow the residents of Broad Top Township to use that name for their mailing address because Schuylkill County already had a Coaldale Borough.
In the case of Alum Bank, the post office had been established originally under that name in what is today East St. Clair Township In the year 1812, a post office was established in the residence of James B. Rininger near the geographic feature of an alum bank. The post office was moved in 1843 to the residence of Joseph Sleek. And then, in 1855 it was moved two and one-half miles west along the Quaker Town Road to the emerging town of Pleasantville. Twenty years later, in 1875, the township of St. Clair was divided and the new boundary line revealed that the post office had crossed over from one township to the other. Regardless of the U. S. Postal Service's decision to keep the name of Alum Bank for its post office in the region, the people still prefer to call their town Pleasantville.
In the northwest corner of Kimmel Township, at the northern end of Long Ridge and at the intersection of two roads, the village of Lewistown grew up. The intersection of Scrubgrass Road, current State Route 4027, and Beaverdam Road, current State Route 4031, formed the center of the village. E. Howard Blackburn, in his 1906 History of Bedford and Somerset Counties, Pennsylvania, described Lewistown as a 'hamlet.' On 01 May 1884, the name of the village was changed by the U. S. Postal Service to Queen due to the existence of another place named Lewistown.
And then there's the curious case of Alaquippa ~ or rather, Hopewell. According to Ben Van Horn "The original name of the village was Alaquippa, apparently for the influential Indian queen, Alaquippa, as was Alaquippa's Town, the Indian village at Mt. Dallas further south on the river." Although Mr. Van Horn did not note the source of his information, it apparently came from the History of Bedford, Somerset and Fulton Counties, Pennsylvania, where the statement appears: "The name of the postoffice at Steeltown is Yellow Creek. Hopewell was the name of the original office in this township, while the office at Hopewell village was known as Alaquippa. Subsequently Hopewell was changed to Yellow Creek and Alaquippa to Hopewell." According to the US Postal Service, the post office was established as Allaquippa on 03 June 1854. The post office received mail from Chambersburg, Pennsylvania two times a week. As soon as the railroad was constructed into this region, the mail began to be carried by that means. The name of the post office was changed from Allaquippa to Hopewell on 24 April 1858.
It seems like some places just couldn't get comfortable with any one particular name. And the Borough of Everett wins first prize for this phenomena. Alongside the Juniata River, at the southern end of Tussey Mountain, a village grew out of a trading post and a borough grew out of the village. James Burd, in cutting a road to support the Braddock Campaign, wrote a letter from Allogueepy's Town on 17 June 1755. The word 'town' would have referred to a trading post rather than to an actual village. The name of any trading post, though tended to be used by travelers to signify the general area surrounding that trading post. By the year 1759, toward the end of the Forbes Campaign, the site had come to be called Bloody Run. The location's name was included in a report titled "Accounts of Pack Horses" by Callender and Hughes during the Forbe Expedition. The report, filed in the year 1759, was not given a day and month, but being an 'annual' report, it can be assumed that it was submitted near the end of the year 1759. Therefore, the name Bloody Run would have been applied to the small stream during the four and one-half years between Burd's letter and the report. Michael Barndollar laid out a town plat at the site on 15 June 1795. He named it Waynesburg. That name lasted only eighteen years. A U.S. Post Office was established in the village on 17 July 1813 and given the name of Bloody Run. When the town was actually incorporated as a borough, on 26 November 1860, it was given the name of Bloody Run. But that wasn't the end of it. In 1873, a movement was started to change the name of the borough of Bloody Run. Those in favor of a change felt that the name, by which the borough had been incorporated just thirteen years earlier, was offensive and an embarrassment. The name 'Everett' was chosen in honor of Edward Everett, a politician from Massachusetts and an orator who advocated the avoidance of war at the start of the Civil War. Edward Everett is perhaps most famous for being the keynote speaker at the dedication of the cemetery at Gettysburg, whose hour long speech is practically forgotten in favor of President Abraham Lincoln's short comments. Despite arguments for and against, the name of the borough was officially changed on 13 February 1873 to 'Everett.'
There is one place that did not have multiple names despite the fact that some people want to believe that it did. Bedford Borough was laid out in 1766 by John Lukens at the request of the Proprietaries. They stipulated in their orders to Lukens that the name of the new town was to be Bedford. A town by the name of Raystown never existed on the site upon which Bedford was laid out. 'Raystown' was the name of the trading post of John Wray, which was located close to the Narrows about one and one-half miles east of the eventual site of the town of Bedford. Absolutely nothing but vegetation occupied the bluff on which Colonel Henry Bouquet chose to construct the fortified depot. Being situated near John Wray's trading post, the fort was known originally as the 'camp near Rays town'. Even the fort was never known as Fort Raystown, as some historians mistakenly claim. Historians in the early 1900s erroneously stated that Bedford was 'formerly Raystown' and the mistake has been difficult to overcome.
