SMETHPORT — There are still seats remaining for the McKean County Historical Society’s 2019 historical bus trip to the Pittsburgh area sites April 30 to May 3.
Besides Pittsburgh, the itinerary includes stops at the Flight 93 Memorial at Shanksville, Fallingwater, Fort Necessity and Old Economy Village.
The tentative schedule begins by departing from the Smethport Fire Department at 8 a.m.
After a noon lunch, the group then moves to the Flight 93 Memorial.
On Sept. 11, 2001, United Airlines Flight 93 scheduled for San Francisco, bearing 44 passengers and crew, was hijacked by four terrorists of al-Qaeda. The airplane crashed into a farm near Shanksville, Somerset County, killing all aboard.
On-flight recordings and phone calls suggest passengers heroically struggled with the captors before the crash, sacrificing themselves as the terrorists planned to crash near the nation’s capital.
The May 1 schedule begins with breakfast and then it’s on to the Carnegie Museum of Natural History, one of the nation’s leading museums, where visitors see exhibits of dinosaurs, minerals and gems, American Indians, ancient Egypt and Arctic life.
In the afternoon, the group tours the Phipps Conservatory and Botanical Gardens located in Pittsburgh’s Oakland neighborhood. Included on the National Registry of Historical places, Phipps is famous for seasonal flower shows and numerous species of exotic plants.
The visit to Fallingwater, a house built over a waterfall in rural Mill Run, Fayette County is slated the morning of May 2. Famous American architect Frank Lloyd Wright designed Fallingwater in 1935 and construction was completed in 1937.
Touring Fort Necessity is the afternoon’s major stop. It was built by George Washington and the Virginia militia near Uniontown early in the French and Indian War after Washington learned the French had captured the English fort at the junction of the Allegheny and Monongahela rivers. Washington was forced to surrender the fort to the French when it was attacked.
On the May 3 schedule are visits to three attractions. First is the Heinz Museum, Pennsylvania’s largest museum. Next is Fort Pitt that the British built from 1759-61 during the French and Indian War at the confluence of the Allegheny and Monongahela rivers where the Ohio is formed.
During the Revolutionary War, it served as headquarters for the western theatre of the war.
The final visit is to Old Economy Village in Ambridge, the third and last home of the Harmony Society, a communal group of Germans. The settlement lasted 100 years.
The Smethport group will be staying at the Hampton Inn in Monroeville, which offers a hot breakfast buffet, indoor pool and exercise room and an adjacent Outback Steakhouse. Several other restaurants are within walking distance.
Paid reservations are due by April 5.
For more information, contact Flo Carter at The Old Jail Museum at 814-887-5142.
