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...