Crime Scene & Biohazard Cleanup Near North Roaring Spring Roaring Spring, PA

Roaring Spring is a borough in Blair County, Pennsylvania, in Morrisons Cove, and it is part of the Altoona metropolitan area.

The town grew up around the Big Spring, a clean and dependable water source; a grist mill powered by the spring operated at the site from at least the 1760s.

In 1865, Daniel Mathias (D. M.) Bare and two partners decided to locate the region's first paper mill near the spring, and Bare laid out Roaring Spring's first 50 building lots that year.

Roaring Spring became the first paper-mill town in Blair County, and the borough and its mill were essentially the creation of D. M. Bare.

The village was part of Taylor Township until June 27, 1888, when Roaring Spring was incorporated as a borough.

By 1873 the young town had about 170 lots and 50 buildings, including the paper and grist mills, three churches, a company store, a schoolhouse, and a hotel, though its population was only about 100.

The Roaring Spring Historic District, listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1995, covers 233 acres and includes 617 properties, 87 percent of them rated as contributing to the district.

The town's paper heritage lives on in the Roaring Spring Blank Book Company and the Spring Water Bottling Company, both still part of the historic core.

The Roaring Spring Passenger Station, built about 1905 by the Pennsylvania Railroad to serve the mill, is the only historic passenger station surviving in Blair County.

Roaring Spring had about 2,390 residents at the 2020 census.