WINDBER MUNICIPAL BUILDING

The Windber Municipal Building was originally Berwind-White’s building for its western Pennsylvania mining operations, this three-story, buff colored brick building was constructed in 1909. The entrance is constructed of Ohio gray stone, while the pillars, foundations and trimmings are of native stone. The interiors were trimmed with oak and the building heated by steam. Designed in the Colonial Revival Style, Originally, the main floor contained ten offices and telephone exchanges for long-distance and local calling, while the other floors contained offices and the company coal laboratory and drafting room. In the basement level, Berwind-White kept an arsenal supplied with billy clubs, tommy guns and Smith and Wesson .38 revolvers for the coal police. In 1991 the Windber Historic District was nominated to the National Register of Historic Places. The district includes most of the original Berwind-White planned grid, and encompasses land and buildings in both Cambria and Somerset Counties. Windber was nominated to the National Register of Historic Places for its significance to the "history of industry, community planning and development, social history, ethnic heritage and architecture," as an example of both a typical western Pennsylvania coal mining community and as a unique example of a planned company town.