Compass Inn
Website:
Telephone Number:
Location:
1386 Lincoln Highway, Laughlintown, PA 15655
Hours:
Tuesday through Sunday 11 AM to 4 PM
Description:
In 1964, Ligonier Valley Historical Society was formed as a nonprofit organization to bring together those people interested in local history. The Society’s major function, both then and now is to discover and collect any material and oral histories, which help establish or illustrate the history of the area, its exploration, settlement, development and activities in peacetime and in wartime.
In 1966, the Ligonier Valley Historical Society accepted a gift from the Richard King Mellon Foundation of the Compass Inn, a former important stagecoach hostelry founded in 1799, with the intention of acquiring funds to restore and maintain the edifice and to eventually become a museum providing a walk into the past for thousands of visitors each year.
In 1972, under the leadership of Mrs. Constance Mellon Burrell and Mrs. Louise "Corky" Barnhart, Compass Inn Museum opened to the public. Since then the site has expanded to include an authentically reconstructed and functioning cookhouse and blacksmith shop, both located on their original sites, a carpenter shop, and a barn that houses an 1830 style stagecoach, a Conestoga wagon, and a Studebaker wagon. Listed on the National Register of Historic Places, the Ligonier Valley Historical Society is proud and pleased to say Compass Inn Museum is of historical significance for the region, the state, and the nation.
In addition to operating the Compass Inn Museum, the Ligonier Valley Historical Society maintains local abandoned historic cemeteries where veterans of the Revolutionary and Civil wars are buried, and it preserves Laurel Hill Iron Furnace located in New Florence that dates back to 1848, which is also listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
From museum website
