KINZUA RESORT: For some reason lately, we’ve been getting a ton
of old clippings – some of which are highly amusing.

With talk recently of a high-end resort at or near the Allegheny
Reservoir we had to chuckle at an Era headline from April 26, 1963:
“Big Kinzua Resort Slated at Westline.”

“Project Completion Date is Fall of 1964 to Tie in with Dam,”
says a sub headline.

Here’s some details on the scoop: “Announcement of a $500,000
resort lodge with year-round facilities to include skiing, ice
skating and other winter activities plus such summertime sports as
swimming, camping and hiking, horse back riding and boating on
nearby Kinzua Lake was made Thursday by Peter N. George and Thomas
J. George, local land developers.”

“The half-million dollar construction program, which will get
under way this summer and be developed in stages until completion
in the fall of 1964 to tie in with the opening of the Allegany
River Reservoir Project (Kinzua Dam), is planned in the Village of
Westline, 18 miles south of Bradford.”

Parts of the clipping have disintegrated with time but we can
discern a comment from Raymond G. Garvin, secretary of the Seneca
Highlands Association, that the project would fill a very definite
need in the association’s accommodations picture.

Later in the story, there was a comment about transforming this
region into the “Adirondacks of Pennsylvania.”

The resort-motel was to be named Kinzua Resort.

Interestingly, the lodge was to be built on 40 acres of private
property which had been “part of the site of the former Westline
plant of the Susquehanna Chemical Co. which was purchased by Peter
George in 1956. The plant at one time was the major producer of
charcoal and wood by-products in the area and employed several
hundred people, the story notes.

The story passes along all manner of detail about the lodge and
its amenities, including an architect’s drawing of the proposed
facility.

We don’t know what may have transpired in the past 40 or so
years, but can’t help but wonder if perhaps the location itself may
have been a factor. That Susquehanna Chemical Co. was home in later
years to those pesky little tar pits in Westline – later the site
of the then-largest Superfund cleanup in the country.