The biography of Peter Karthaus, who used local iron ore and coal resources, to develop his smelting industry in Karthaus Township, which bears his name, is a well-known part of Clearfield County history and lore.
Karthaus was also a vital part of the early timber rafting industry given than it sat near the confluence of Moshannon Creek and the West Branch of the Susquehanna River.
The county’s lowest elevation point is found there, as Moshannon Creek divides Clearfield and Centre counties.
After the winter snow melt, the rising waters of the West Branch gave a timely window of opportunity for lumbermen to successfully float their winter cut timber and logs to markets as far away as Marietta, Pa., just north of the Chesapeake Bay.
The rafter’s journey was long, arduous and fraught with danger. Unseen rocks beneath the rapid water’s surface could wreck a raft. Rafters could then face head injuries, hypothermia and drowning. Skilled river pilots learned to know the river and its whims like a second home.
Lewis Miller opened his hotel, in 1869, at an opportune landing site near Karthaus. The rafting crew would secure the raft there for the night, using thick coiled hemp ropes tied to an iron ring which was fastened into a large and solid rock at the river’s edge. (See photo of “ring rock”).
The like later 19th century photo of the hotel, itself, shows a large, two story multi room building that was said to accommodate as many as seventy-five men. For a small fee, the tired and hungry rafters would be communally fed and put up for the night.
The meals had to be prepared in bulk in order to fill the appetites of the hard-working men. Sleep was just as welcome and the rafters had a chance to rest their fatigued bodies on beds in shared rooms with perhaps, dozens of others like themselves. Certainly, there were no luxury suites!
The bottom section of the hotel photo shows the corner of a timber raft. The timbers shown are nowhere near as large as the ones of earlier decades. Much of the huge original white pine trees had been logged decades before, so the photo may well date from the 1890’s.
The Miller’s Landing Hotel was destroyed by fire in 1952. The ring rock still remains. The hotel site and the ring rock are a marked and treasured county historical site to this day.
