Stahlstown diorama commemorates a bygone era

Guests no longer can stay at the Stahlstown Hotel, and students can't attend the town's one-room schoolhouses.

Those landmark buildings have disappeared from the Cook Township community's landscape, but they still have a place in a scaled-down version of the village to be unveiled at 7 p.m. Friday at the township community center.

The diorama has been in development for more than two decades, but work kicked into high gear the past five years.

Harry Lenhart, 78, who lives just over the border in Mt. Pleasant Township, has been a constant force in the project since conceiving it with his late brother-in-law, Ivan Campbell, part owner of Laurel Valley Aluminum and a community center board member.

"It's been a commitment," Lenhart said of developing the 8-foot-square model of Stahlstown. "Every time you added something to it, it looked a little bit better."

A carpenter, cabinetmaker and model-railroad enthusiast, Lenhart applied his interests and skills to the project. Taking cues from old photos contributed by residents or obtained from the local Chestnut Ridge Historical Society, he crafted miniature pine replicas of about 50 houses and other major buildings to depict Stahlstown between the late 19th century and the 1940s.

"It was about 65 with the outhouses. There's one for every house," he noted.

Lenhart's chief partner in the effort has been Tom Duran, 73, of Cook, an artist whose experience working for Pittsburgh's Carnegie Museum and the state Fish and Boat Commission ranged from painting signs to taxidermy. Duran took charge of the diorama's papier-mache landscape, representing key areas along Stahlstown's Diamond Street and routes 130 and 711.

Other volunteers helped through the years, with everything from painting miniature buildings to wiring lights to illuminate their interiors.

Laid out on property originally owned by Leonard Stahl and named after him, Stahlstown once was a busy place, with auto garages, the Crabtree and Cloverleaf stores and a movie theater on the second floor of the Hall House apartment building — all represented in the small-scale display.

"There were a few buildings we had to leave out," a former blacksmith shop among them, Duran said. "For every extra bit of area we could have included, the houses would have gotten smaller," affecting the level of detail possible.

Lenhart was able to turn out a standard model house in about four hours. But it took much longer to recreate the textured brick facades, belfry and roof of Trinity United Methodist Church, dating from 1832. "There are a lot of little bricks sticking out," Lenhart said of the model.

The display is encased behind glass in a space created by removing student lockers and breaking through to a storage area in the former Cook Township Elementary School. The display can be rolled out into the hallway to allow Lenhart, Duran and their helpers to work on it.

"There are little refinements we want to work on," Duran said.

He and Lenhart this week were piecing together blown-up images from old photos, including one of the Stahlstown Hotel, to fill the display's blank background.

"I'm pleased how it turned out. I'm hoping the next couple generations enjoy it," Lenhart said. "This at least gives them an idea of what Stahlstown was like."

Jeff Himler is a Tribune-Review staff writer. Reach him at 724-836-6622, jhimler@tribweb.com or via Twitter @jhimler_news.