Callensburg was surveyed in 1826, by Hugh Callen Sr., who commissioned a young surveyor named Sidle Lobaugh to lay out a town on part of the 300 acres he had purchased in 1812. Callen anticipated the building of the Pennsylvania Canal through that region, and while the eventual route of the canal did not pass near Callensburg, the area still attracted enough settlers to form a borough. It was incorporated in 1851, and held the first town election on March 21, 1851.
Passages that mention Callensburg, cut from the printed page as they were published.
History of Clarion County, Pennsylvania1887 · page 443Read the page →
Read the text
settlements were made at or near the mouth of Deer Creek, one by Joseph Brown and the other by John Orr. It is possible that these settlements antedated the settlements made by the Bests, but a memorandum in possession of Captain R. Laughlin, of Callensburg, only shows positive proof that the Deer Creek settlement was made as early as in 1802, at the latest. The memorandum is as follows : " Memorandum — Robert Brown.
Text read by machine from the scan; it may contain errors.
History of Clarion County, Pennsylvania1887 · page 42Read the page →
Read the text
We can more unhesitatingly concur with Geologist Chance's opinion that the Clarion River has changed its channel at Callensburg. The isolation of the eminence on which Callensburg is situated, and the peculiarity of Licking Creek, which empties itself into the river squarely against the current, point to the existence of a former channel which turned to the south where the bridge now is, and described an irregular horse-shoe bend about Callensburg. Licking Creek, which now occupies the western half of this channel, then had its mouth about two miles south of its present one, near Mr. Colwell's. The nar-
Text read by machine from the scan; it may contain errors.
Scans and text from the Internet Archive. Books published in 1930 or earlier, which are in the public domain.
Founding dates: Wikidata, Wikipedia, the U.S. post office records of Blevins & Helbock (CC0) and the Census. Homes by year built: Census ACS 2020–24. National Register of Historic Places: National Park Service (list of May 22, 2026). Old photos, postcards and papers: Wikimedia Commons, the Library of Congress and other public archives, credited on each item’s page. Maps: U.S. Geological Survey historical topographic maps (via Esri) and Sanborn fire-insurance maps (Library of Congress). History text and census tables: Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0). Places that used to be: USGS Geographic Names Information System (2021). How TownRatings grades history →
From Wikimedia Commons (2), Wikipedia, U.S. Geological Survey historical maps, U.S. Census counts (via Wikipedia), the US Post Offices dataset (Blevins & Helbock), the USGS Geographic Names Information System and old county and town histories (Internet Archive). Archive images are copied here with their credits and licenses, shown on each photo’s page. Refreshed monthly.
2015
2015
