Bellefonte

The borough of Bellefonte is the seat of Centre County, Pennsylvania. It is situated about a dozen miles northeast of present day State College, Pennsylvania. It was home home to five Pennsylvania governors. It was also home to the only two brothers to ever serve as governors at the same time. John and William Bigler moved to Bellefonte and bought the Centre Democrat newspaper in 1831. In 1848, John moved to Sacramento, where the Gold Rush was in full bloom. He entered politics there and was elected the third governor of California in 1851. William was elected the twelfth governor of Pennsylvania the very same day. Additionally, Robert Walker, the 4th Territorial Governor of Kansas, lived in Bellefonte during his school years and went to school at the Bellefonte Academy. President James Buchanan appointed him to the position in May of 1857 but resigned in December of the same year. These facts make Bellefonte unique, as all seven of these governors served within a 50-year period. In 1868, the Bush House Hotel, bankrolled by Daniel G. Bush, was one of the first hotels in the United States to have electric lights and had Thomas Edison as a guest. It was eventually used as a restaurant as well as other businesses, but it burned to the ground in early 2006. Another historic building, the Garman Opera House, was built in 1890 and was a venue for luminaries including Houdini, Tom Mix, and George Burns and Gracie Allen. The Opera House, along with the Garman Hotel, burned down in the fall of 2012 as the result of arson. In 2009, the historic Cadillac Building, so-named because it was originally a Cadillac dealership in 1916, burned. At that point, it was a mixed use residential and commercial building. The cause of the fire was found to be Christmas tree lights in one of the apartment units.

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