Silas Corvin is watching the hills, the hollows, and the halls of power. While Washington cuts deals, he’s tracking what those deals cost — your hospital, your farm, your paycheck. Policy impacts, local stakes, and the questions your representative hopes you won’t ask.
This is the District 13 Raven; Silas Corvin reporting.
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The Johnstown Labor History Museum
A Labor History Museum Belongs in Johnstown Johnstown has a flood museum, an immigration exhibit at the Heritage Discovery Center, an inclined plane with a small interpretive area, and a scatter of markers and modest collections across the region. What it doesn’t have yet is the one institution the valley is most suited for: a…
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Johnstown Municipal Gardens
Run it. Here it is: Johnstown Municipal Gardens A Living Garden, A Working Machine, A New Kind of Civic Infrastructure Bright Meadow Group Every city eventually reaches the same crossroads. You can build infrastructure that hides from people—pipes underground, treatment plants at the edge of town, systems designed purely to function. Or you can build…
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Together: A Hard Look at a Hopeful History
Race and Nationality in Johnstown: A Real History Prologue I don’t usually open this heavy, but the rest of this piece needs it. So here goes. Race relations are fear relations. Every place that has ever had them has had them for the same reason — the people already there were afraid of what the…
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An Open Letter to the Capital Class
Or: Do You Want to Make More Money Making Your City Better? I’m going to tell you, up front, that I think you’re probably a turd. Not all of you. But enough of you that I want it on the record before we go further. You’re sitting on enough money to feed a county and…
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Johnstown’s Next Mill:
A Proposal to Turn Closed Industrial Capacity Into the Region’s Material Recovery Sector A BMG Concept Brief Johnstown is a city built to process material at scale. We have rail. We have water. We have grid capacity sized for an industrial era that left and never came back. We have buildings — some standing, some…
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Rivers of the World Aquarium and Conemaugh Conservatory
A Proposal for Johnstown, Pennsylvania Bright Meadow Group is bringing forward a high-leverage opportunity for the City of Johnstown: an attraction that does not exist anywhere else in the United States — six immersive continental river pavilions under glass, each one a Crystal Bridge–scale botanical conservatory paired with the freshwater fish native to that continent’s…
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The Chapin Arch: A Love Letter in Iron Money
A Love Letter in Iron Money, and the Highway That Tore the Envelope If you’ve driven down Menoher Boulevard into Johnstown, you’ve passed it — or at least passed by it — even if you never caught the name. The Chapin Arch. Cut stone, weathered to that mottled brown the rain leaves on every old…
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7apr26 D13Raven
Silas here. Monday morning. Feathers wet. Coffee black. Let’s run it. Jackson Township, Cambria County, Pennsylvania — zoning board hearing tonight at the fire hall on Adams Avenue. Robindale Energy out of Latrobe wants to strip mine wooded land owned by the Greater Johnstown Water Authority. Township already said no — strip mining’s not allowed…
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Check Out the Courthouse
There is something about civic buildings that has always stopped me in my tracks. I can drive past a strip mall without noticing it. A big box store barely registers. But put a courthouse, a library, or a city hall in front of me—something built with real intention—and I slow down immediately. I want to…
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Franklin Street United Methodist Church in Johnstown, PA
An Architectural Presence More Than a Historical Footnote Johnstown’s Franklin Street United Methodist Church stands at the corner of Franklin and Locust as a physical argument — not a relic, not a memory, but a case study in purposeful construction and material expression. Franklin Street United Methodist Church does not ask for your attention. It…
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Johnstown, Pennsylania
I’ve Talked About Why I Moved Here. Let Me Tell You Why You Should. I’ve written before about why I chose to plant myself in Johnstown, Pennsylvania. Now I want to talk directly to you. Not about my reasons. About yours. If you are looking for somewhere to live, build, work, create, raise a family,…
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A Stone Porch Victorian Transitional
This house is an example of why Johnstown never fits neatly into one architectural category. Johnstown wasn’t built in one confident burst. It was built, broken, rebuilt, expanded, abandoned, and repurposed—over and over again—by forces much larger than any individual resident. Steel booms, wartime surges, industrial collapses, and repeated catastrophic floods meant the city was…
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A Different Way to Think About Data Centers
A Local Ownership Model for Johnstown and Cambria County (This could work anywhere and should. Also site selection on the image was for convenience. No plans exist.) Right now, communities are being told they must accept data centers — along with their energy demands, land-use impacts, and long-term risks — in exchange for jobs, tax…
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First United Methodist Church
There are buildings that announce themselves, and there are buildings that hold a city. The First United Methodist Church of Johnstown belongs firmly to the second category. Rising in red-brown stone at the edge of downtown, it does not shout for attention. It anchors. Its weight, proportion, and materiality give it the quiet authority of…
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The City of Johnstown Firefighters Memorial Bridge
Franklin Street, Johnstown, Pennsylvania It’s tempting—especially if you’ve spent any time around modern infrastructure manuals—to describe the Franklin Street Bridge as a basic bridge. A steel truss. One main span. No swooping cables, no sculptural concrete pylons, no algorithmically optimized curves meant to look good in drone footage. A very basic design for a modern…
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Steel, Stone, Survival, and the St. John Gualbert Cathedral
St. John Gualbert Cathedral and the Architecture of Flood City One of the great, underappreciated truths about Johnstown is that it is a city told through its churches. Not metaphorically—physically. While much of the American landscape flattened its sacred architecture into vinyl-sided boxes and interchangeable brick shells, Johnstown kept building churches as if style still…
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The Mansard on Vine Street
At 510 Vine Street in Johnstown, there is a building that does not quite belong to its surroundings—and that is exactly why it matters. In a city built of brick pragmatism and industrial necessity, this structure leans into ornament, silhouette, and ambition. Its defining feature is unmistakable: a Second Empire–style mansard roof, slate-clad and sharply…
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Welcome (Back)
to the Blue Ribbon Team …and to our new home in beautiful Johnstown, Pennsylvania It feels good to say that out loud — we’re home.After years of wandering, reviewing, and rambling, the Blue Ribbon Team has found its new base in Johnstown, PA, a town that refuses to quit no matter what history throws at…
This page will include news from the following places and municipalities included in the 13th Congressional District of Pennsylvania:
Adams County (34): Abbottstown, Arendtsville, Bendersville, Biglerville, Bonneauville, Carroll Valley, East Berlin, Fairfield, Gettysburg, Littlestown, McSherrystown, New Oxford, York Springs, Berwick Township, Butler Township, Conewago Township, Cumberland Township, Franklin Township, Freedom Township, Germany Township, Hamilton Township, Highland Township, Huntington Township, Latimore Township, Liberty Township, Menallen Township, Mount Joy Township, Mount Pleasant Township, Oxford Township, Reading Township, Straban Township, Tyrone Township, Union Township.
Bedford County (38): Bedford, Coaldale, Everett, Hopewell, Hyndman, Manns Choice, New Paris, Pleasantville, Rainsburg, St. Clairsville, Saxton, Schellsburg, Alum Bank (CDP), Bedford Township, Bloomfield Township, Broad Top Township, Colerain Township, Cumberland Valley Township, East Providence Township, Harrison Township, Hopewell Township, Juniata Township, Liberty Township, Londonderry Township, Mann Township, Monroe Township, Napier Township, Pavia Township, Snake Spring Township, Southampton Township, St. Clair Township, Union Township, West Providence Township, Woodbury Township.
Blair County (25): Altoona (city), Hollidaysburg, Roaring Spring, Martinsburg, Tyrone, Williamsburg, Duncansville, Bellwood, Antis Township, Blair Township, Catharine Township, Frankstown Township, Freedom Township, Greenfield Township, Huston Township, Juniata Township, Logan Township, North Woodbury Township, Snyder Township, Taylor Township, Tyrone Township, Woodbury Township.
Cambria County (63): Johnstown (city), Barnesboro, Carrolltown, Cassandra, Cresson, Dale, East Conemaugh, Ebensburg, Ehrenfeld, Ferndale, Franklin, Gallitzin, Geistown, Hastings, Lilly, Loretto, Nanty Glo, Northern Cambria, Patton, Portage, Sankertown, Scalp Level, South Fork, Southmont, Summerhill, Tunnelhill, Westmont, Adams Township, Allegheny Township, Barr Township, Blacklick Township, Cambria Township, Carroll Township, Chest Township, Clearfield Township, Conemaugh Township, Croyle Township, Dean Township, East Taylor Township, Elder Township, Jackson Township, Lower Yoder Township, Middle Taylor Township, Munster Township, Richland Township, Southmont Township, Stonycreek Township, Summerhill Township, Susquehanna Township, Upper Yoder Township, Washington Township, West Taylor Township, White Township.
Cumberland County (partial — 9 municipalities): Hopewell Township, Lower Mifflin Township, Newburg, North Newton Township, Shippensburg Borough (part, shared with Franklin County), Shippensburg Township, Southampton Township, Upper Frankford Township, Upper Mifflin Township.
Franklin County (22): Chambersburg, Greencastle, Mercersburg, Mont Alto, Orrstown, Shippensburg (shared with Cumberland), Waynesboro, Antrim Township, Fannett Township, Greene Township, Guilford Township, Hamilton Township, Lurgan Township, Metal Township, Montgomery Township, Peters Township, Quincy Township, Southampton Township, St. Thomas Township, Warren Township, Washington Township.
Fulton County (13): McConnellsburg, Taylor Township, Ayr Township, Belfast Township, Bethel Township, Brush Creek Township, Dublin Township, Licking Creek Township, Thompson Township, Todd Township, Union Township, Wells Township.
Huntingdon County (48): Huntingdon, Mount Union, Mapleton, Orbisonia, Rockhill, Shade Gap, Shirleysburg, plus 40+ townships including Barree, Brady, Carbon, Cass, Clay, Cromwell, Dublin, Franklin, Henderson, Hopewell, Jackson, Juniata, Lincoln, Logan, Morris, Oneida, Penn, Porter, Shirley, Springfield, Tell, Todd, Union, Walker, Warriors Mark, West, Wood, and others.
Juniata County (17): Mifflintown, Mifflin, Thompsontown, Beale Township, Delaware Township, Fermanagh Township, Fayette Township, Greenwood Township, Lack Township, Milford Township, Monroe Township, Spruce Hill Township, Susquehanna Township, Turbett Township, Tuscarora Township, Walker Township.
Mifflin County (16): Lewistown, Burnham, Juniata Terrace, McVeytown, Kistler, Armagh Township, Brown Township, Bratton Township, Decatur Township, Derry Township, Granville Township, Menno Township, Oliver Township, Union Township, Wayne Township.
Perry County (30): Bloomfield, Duncannon, Landisburg, Liverpool, Marysville, Millerstown, New Buffalo, New Bloomfield, Newport, plus townships including Buffalo, Carroll, Centre, Greenwood, Howe, Jackson, Juniata, Liverpool, Madison, Miller, Oliver, Penn, Rye, Saville, Spring, Toboyne, Tuscarora, Tyrone, Watts, Wheatfield.
Somerset County (partial): Conemaugh Township (part). The district document only lists this one municipality as the Somerset slice in the spreadsheet-format section. However, the campaign photo document references a much larger Somerset County presence — Shanksville, Somerset Borough, Confluence, Meyersdale, Berlin, Rockwood, Ursina, Wellersburg, and dozens of townships.
It may have some other tidbits too….but that you can be sure of.