Butler, PA Walkabout

Over the Christmas holiday, I was able to explore parts of Southwestern Pennsylvania. On December 23rd, we took a drive up to and walked around the town of Butler.

To visit the entire photo set on flickr, head here.

Butler is a unique town of 15,000 located about 35 miles north of Pittsburgh. It is the county seat of Butler County. The County Courthouse (shown below) was built in 1885 and is still in use today.

One of more unique buildings in Bulter is the Butler County Motor Company Ford Dealership.

This is the first time I had seen an automotive dealer be housed in a multi-story building like this. The Butler County Motor Company (aka Butler County Ford) has been around since 1918 and was one of the first Ford automotive dealerships authorized by Henry Ford.

Walking down Main Street in Butler - there are a number of great older building, storefronts, and ghost signs.

One of the buildings that caught my eye at the end was the home of the Penn Theatre. Even though looking up the theatre online says that it is being renovated, it looks in pretty bad shape, and most of those articles date to 2005 and the theatre looks a lot better then.

The theatre was built in 1938 and was sold in 2001. Currently, the Butler Penn Theatre Community Trust hopes to renovate the Penn Theatre but the last information I found was a presentation from 2009. I certainly hope that this theatre can be renovated and that various events small, large, local, and otherwise can occur there.

Finally, it was a cold day and even some snow flurries briefly fell through the air. Maggie and I stopped at a Downtown Butler tradition, Cummings Candy and Coffee Shop to warm up and get something to eat.

The Cummings family have owned and operated the shop since 1905 - making it the oldest family owned business in Butler! Inside definitely has an old fashioned soda shop feel, and it's a great place to have some coffee or tea or a quick snack.

There's a lot more to Butler than the quick 30 or so minute walk that Friday before Christmas. It was certainly worth the drive to check out for the first time.

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