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OT Best manufacturing related museums in Pennsylvania, also like abandoned factories

S

SBAER

Hot Rolled
Joined
Aug 21, 2006
Location
Kitchener, on canada
I am going to spend a week in Pennsylvania with my wife and two kids (11 and 13 years old). "Dirty old town" tourism is my thing, I enjoyed a full day of walking around the decrepit parts of Rochester while the kids were at the Museum of Play.

This is our first vacation since we went to France three years ago but on that trip the kids had a surprising tolerance for museums and castle ruins so I am hoping to find some interesting museums that focus on manufacturing and maybe visit some abandoned stuff, factories, sanitariums, mine headframes etc on this trip, the more rust the better.

If anyone has any recommendations for state or national parks that are nicer than average I would appreciate that as well.

Stan
 
There are so many, it would help to know what part of the state you intend to visit.

The Mercer Museum in Doylestown has an unusual and intriguing collection of early and primitive tools.

Landis Valley Farm and Museum near Lancaster and the York County Agricultural and Industrial Museum are worth seeing.

In years past, both York and Lancaster were heavy manufacturing centers.

And Harley-Davidson has a good exhibit at their plant in York.

The Strasburg Railroad is just East of Lancaster.

Hershey Chocolate Factory has a plant tour.

Mack trucks are built near Allentown, ... in Macungie, PA. ... and their engine assembly plant is just South of Gettysburg, ... in Hagerstown, MD.

The list just goes on and on .....

.
 
Which side of Pennsylvania ?

It's a very wide state, sort of divided by those mountains running down the middle near Happy valley...er State College.
 
digger doug said:
Which side of Pennsylvania ?

It's a very wide state, sort of divided by those mountains running down the middle near Happy valley...er State College.
Click to expand...

We haven't decided where to go yet other than we promised the kids a visit to the Hershey factory. Should we do a sort of loop coming south through the eastern side and returning on the northern side through Pittsburgh?
 
The Strasburg Railroad is just East of Lancaster.
Click to expand...
Strasburg offers tours of their machine shop, and the Pa RR museum is right across the road.

If you like wheels, there is the Boyertown Museum of Historic Vehicles, and the AACA museum in Hershey.
And the Eastern Museum of Motor Racing is exceptional, near Hbg. in York Springs.
The Simeone Foundation automotive museum is world class, in Phila.
 
dkmc said:
Surely you visited the abandoned subway while you were in Rochester?
Rochester Subway : Rochester Subway History, Photos, and Maps, Rochester NY
Click to expand...

I had no idea there was such a thing. As I walked around Rochester I found it hard to understand how the place could have fallen so hard. Huge amounts of money must have been made there and the work force must have been pretty skilled. The small manufacturing based cities I know in southern Ontario were never as prosperous as Rochester but they have ridden out the last 30 years more gracefully. I am curious as to the main causes for difference in outcomes.
 
SBAER said:
I had no idea there was such a thing. As I walked around Rochester I found it hard to understand how the place could have fallen so hard. Huge amounts of money must have been made there and the work force must have been pretty skilled. The small manufacturing based cities I know in southern Ontario were never as prosperous as Rochester but they have ridden out the last 30 years more gracefully. I am curious as to the main causes for difference in outcomes.
Click to expand...

Rochester was a one horse town. And the horses name was Kodak
.
 
Just north of the pennsy border is the Corning Museum of glass, with live demonstrations and hands on hot glass work for the kids. I'm not sure what age those start; see the website. There is also there is a nice art museum, but the name escapes me. I think there is a steam train near Scranton, pa.
 
SBAER said:
and returning on the northern side through Pittsburgh?
Click to expand...

Ahem....Pizzaborg is on the south side of Pa......

Can't recommend much of anything up here in the Northwest corner, however, the
trip up I-79 from Pizzaborg towards Erie, you can divert to the west to visit
Rick Rowlands museum in "just over the border" Youngstown, Ohio.
Thence onto I-80 to the west side of Cleveland, for a tour of the flats and the steel mills there.
 
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