Drifting, PA

Drifting is an unincorporated community in Cooper Township, Clearfield County, along Pennsylvania Route 53 about eight miles west of Snow Shoe. Its post office opened on December 6, 1895. The name is usually connected to the drift mines cut into nearby slopes, though local lore also ties it to snow drifting across the farm fields. The older name Cooper Settlement survives in the history of St. Severin's Old Log Church, built by German settlers in 1851 and listed on the National Register in 1975.

Drifting still has a working rural economy. Zetts Fish Farm and Hatcheries, established in 1900, supplies live fish, pond equipment, feed, and plants from its Route 53 location. The church and Cooper Grove host the annual Cooper Picnic, while farmland continues along the roads around the settlement. The surrounding hills remain part of the local picture. Drifting's map is a mix of a historic church, a long-running aquatic farm, a post office, and the agricultural slopes that gave the community its name.