Fred Waring (1900 - 1984)
Tyrone, Blair County, Pennsylvania
Marker Inscription
World-renowned choral arranger and band leader, Waring was born and raised in Tyrone. In 1919, while attending Penn State, he started "Fred Waring and the Pennsylvanians," a popular musical group that entertained for seven decades on stage, screen, radio, and TV.
Erected by Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission
The Story
Fred Waring was born and raised in the Blair County town of Tyrone, where his gift for music took shape early. In 1919, while a student at Penn State, he launched "Fred Waring and the Pennsylvanians," a musical ensemble that would entertain audiences for some seven decades across stage, film, radio, and television. His lush choral arrangements made him a household name and a fixture of American entertainment for generations.
Why it matters
Waring carried the sound of small-town Pennsylvania onto the national stage, shaping American popular music through much of the twentieth century.
Own a business near here? Add it to the map.
Related people
- · Fred Waring
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Leap-The-Dips Roller Coaster
Logan Township, PA · est. 2000
Built in 1902 by Philadelphia's E. Joy Morris, Leap-The-Dips is a side-friction figure-eight coaster from the dawn of the American amusement-park era, when hundreds of such wooden rides thrilled crowds at trolley parks nationwide. As tastes changed and the others were torn down, this one at Lakemont Park endured to become the last of its kind and the world's oldest known operating roller coaster. It carries National Historic Landmark status.
Rural Electrification
Oneida Township, PA · est. 1992
In 1936 three-quarters of Pennsylvania's farms still had no electricity, leaving rural families to a life without electric light, pumps, or motors. With federal support, fourteen consumer-owned cooperatives sprang up across the state over the next five years to string wire where private utilities would not. The Valley Rural Electric Cooperative, incorporated here in 1938, brought power to seven counties from its Huntingdon headquarters.
Daniel Hale Williams (1856-1931)
Hollidaysburg, PA · est. 1989
Daniel Hale Williams spent his boyhood in Hollidaysburg before rising to the front rank of American medicine. In 1891 he founded Provident Hospital in Chicago—one of the nation's first interracial hospitals and a training ground for Black nurses and doctors barred from white institutions. Two years later he performed one of the earliest successful operations on the human heart, and he went on to lead Freedmen's Hospital in Washington and help charter the American College of Surgeons.
Canal Basin
Hollidaysburg, PA · est. 1982
At Hollidaysburg, the 127-mile Juniata Division of the Pennsylvania Canal met the Allegheny Portage Railroad, an ingenious system that hauled canal boats over the mountains toward Johnstown, 36 miles west. The canal opened in 1832 and the railroad in 1834, together forming a continuous route across the formidable Allegheny barrier. Engineers marveled at the portage line, which climbed nearly 1,400 feet in just ten miles using inclined planes.