Documentary History of American Water-works

Centre Hall

Centre Hall, Pennsylvania

Centre Hall was settled in 1847 and incorporated as a borough in 1885.

The Centre Hall Water Company was incorporated in 1858 with Henry Witmer, Peter Durst, William Wolf, George Durst, Jared Murry, James P. Wilson, and John Neff appointed as commissioners to establish the company. The capital stock was $500. The company built a gravity system in 1858 that distributed water using wooden pipes, which were replaced with iron pipes around 1875.

In 1897 the Borough of Centre Hall decided to build its own water system, which was approved by a vote of 77 to 6 held on August 14, 1897. The water company obtained an injunction, claiming that it had exclusive rights to provide water service in the borough, but a local court disagreed and the Pennsylvania Supreme Court upheld the borough on appeal. The borough's water system was operating in 1898 and the borough bought the water company on June 12, 1919. The last wood pipe was replaced with ductile iron in 1982.

Water service is provided by the Borough of Centre Hall.

References
1858 An act chartering a Water Company in Centre Hall, Centre county. March 17, 1858.

1868 A supplement to an act incorporating the Centre Hall Water Company, passed the seventeenth day of March, Anno Domini one thousand eight hundred and fifty-eight. March 24, 1868.

1883 History of Centre and Clinton Counties, Pennsylvania, by John Blair Linn
Page 410: The Centre Hall Water Company was incorporated June 30, 1858, by Henry Witmer, Peter Durst, William Wolf, George Durst, J. D. Murray, James P. Wilson, and John Neff. The original capital stock was five hundred dollars, which in March, 1868, was increased to five thousand dollars. It supplies the citizens with pure spring-water, conducted from the foot of Nittany Mountain through iron pipes. The present officers are Fred. Kurtz, president; William Wolf, secretary and treasurer.

1891 "Centre Hall," from Manual of American Water Works, Volume 3.

1897 "Centre Hall," from Manual of American Water Works, Volume 4.

1898 The Centre Hall Water Company v. Borough of Centre Hall, 186 Pa. 74, 40 Atl. 153, Supreme Court of Pennsylvania
The company was duly organized and built waterworks in the fall of 1858, and then commenced supplying the village of Centre Hall with water.

1919 "Application of the Borough of Centre Hall for approval of the purchase of the property of the Centre Hall Water Company, and the beginning of the exercise of the right to operate said plant in connection with the water plant of said borough," Department Reports of Pennsylvania.

2016 "Centre Hall Borough," The Keystone Tap, Pennsylvania Rural Water Association, Pages 13-14. (Spring 2016)