Town · Bedford, Bedford County
Bedford
A Lincoln Highway county seat with 18th- and 19th-century buildings, the house where Washington stayed during the Whiskey Rebellion, covered bridges nearby and a grand old mineral-springs resort.
Bedford grew up around Fort Bedford, built in 1758 on the road the British cut west toward Fort Duquesne, and Pitt Street, its main street, is now part of the Lincoln Highway. In 1794 George Washington came here to review the army sent to put down the Whiskey Rebellion, and stayed in the Espy House on Pitt Street. Later presidents came to take the waters at the Bedford Springs, the mineral-spring resort just south of town that James Buchanan made his summer White House.
The Fort Bedford Museum tells the town's frontier story, and Old Bedford Village, a collection of log and frame buildings on the edge of town, brings it to life. The countryside around is known for its covered bridges, Shawnee State Park has a big lake for swimming and boating, and the Flight 93 National Memorial is about forty minutes west.
Make a day of it
In and around Bedford
History museum · Bedford, Bedford County
Fort Bedford Museum
A replica log blockhouse built in 1958 holds artifacts of the 1758 fort and life along the Forbes Road, from muskets to an 1814 Conestoga wagon.
Living history museum · Bedford Township, Bedford County
Old Bedford Village
A re-created village of log and frame buildings where costumed interpreters demonstrate frontier trades and daily life of the 1700s and 1800s.
Photo: thisisbossi, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons
State park · Napier Township, Bedford County
Shawnee State Park
Campers, boaters, anglers and hikers have plenty of room to spread out around a big lake with a sandy beach, in the ridges along the old Lincoln Highway.
National memorial · Stonycreek Township, Somerset County
Flight 93 National Memorial
A memorial on the field where Flight 93 came down on September 11, 2001, with a visitor center overlooking the crash site, a wall of names and the 93-foot Tower of Voices.
Also nearby
Nearby
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Fort Bedford Museum
A replica log blockhouse built in 1958 holds artifacts of the 1758 fort and life along the Forbes Road, from muskets to an 1814 Conestoga wagon.
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Old Bedford Village
A re-created village of log and frame buildings where costumed interpreters demonstrate frontier trades and daily life of the 1700s and 1800s.
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Shawnee State Park
Campers, boaters, anglers and hikers have plenty of room to spread out around a big lake with a sandy beach, in the ridges along the old Lincoln Highway.