The Big Fill: Emigh's Gap

Wednesday, October 14, 2009 at 7:00 p.m.

Please join us on Wednesday, October 14 at 7:00 p.m. at the Centre Furnace Mansion for a special presentation by Luther Gette.

No, The Big Fill is not a mass grave. It is Centre County's own huge Horseshoe Curve up the escarpment of the Allegheny Front to Emigh's Gap, opening the coal plateau to commerce. Built up wheelbarrow by wheelbarrow, the Fill carried rails around a curve so tight that trains had to be pushed downhill around it. Based as much on wish as on science, the curve was an 80-year-long headache to the coal train engineers and brakemen linking Philipsburg with Tyrone and the world. Luther Gette's love for railroads and for his home town bring life and joy to this great county story.

Built through the rugged western portion of Centre County between 1858 and 1862, the Tyrone & Clearfield Railroad required some spectacular engineering to climb the Allegheny Front to the 2,040 foot summit of Emigh's Gap near Sandy Ridge. There were steep grades and plenty of curves, the sharpest of which crossed high above Mt. Pleasant Run on nearly one hundred feet of fill, dug from borrow pits along the mountainside by Irish laborers making around a dollar a day. Known as the Big Fill, this tight curve was poorly laid out by the Tyrone & Clearfield chief engineer James E. Montgomery, and hampered railroad operations during the 107 years it was in service (1862-1969). Still, following its takeover by the Pennsylvania Railroad in 1862, the line carried to market upwards of four million tons of Moshannon Valley coal.

Using a power point presentation that includes numerous photos, Luther Gette will tell the story of the many wrecks that occurred on or near the Big Fill, including the famous circus train wreck of May 30, 1893. There will also be a short photographic tour of the T&C from Tyrone to Grampian. A song about the Irish laborers on the T&C and a poem about the Big Fill itself will round out Luther's talk.

Luther Gette, born in 1938, grew up along the Tyrone & Clearfield in Philipsburg, just in time to be smitten by Pennsylvania Railroad steam power in its last days of glory. Osceola, Tyrone, and the Bald Eagle Valley were his favorite haunts as PA locomotives ran their last miles. Luther holds degrees in French literature from Penn State and the University of Wisconsin, and is now retired and living in Madison, WI. He spent the best part of his life riding freight trains across the U.S.A., and in 1995 was elected King of the Hobos at the National Hobo Convention in Britt, Iowa.

http://www.centrecountyhistory.org/eventsexhibits/bigfill.html