Cambridge Springs, PA

Cambridge Springs began as Cambridge in 1822, but the springs gave the borough its bigger chapter. By the late 19th century, visitors were coming to “take the waters,” and the grand Rider Hotel became the centerpiece of a resort town. When the hotel’s fortunes changed, the Polish National Alliance bought it and opened Alliance College there in 1912, creating a Polish-American liberal arts campus that lasted until 1987. The Cambridge Springs Museum and Historical Society now keeps an Alliance College room with yearbooks, costumes, and campus artifacts. Add U.S. 6 and 19 through town, and you get a Crawford County place where mineral water and immigrant education share the same story.