Hyndman, PA

Hyndman is a Bedford County borough in the valley of Wills Creek, where the waterway cuts through Savage Mountain and Little Allegheny Mountain before turning south toward Maryland. The setting gives the town a mountain-pass geography, with roads and rail lines following the creek and the surrounding ridges rising sharply beyond the borough. It lies in Londonderry Township in southwestern Bedford County. The creek’s bends still make the borough’s streets feel shaped by water and mountain crossings. Its valley is narrow enough that every road seems to announce the surrounding ridges.

Before the borough took its present shape, Samuel Waters built a bridge over Wills Creek, and Jacob Burkett and Amos Raley ran a boatbuilding business at the settlement then called Bridgeport. The boats carried grain toward Cumberland, Maryland. A one-room school opened in 1865, while a 1949 fire destroyed much of the business center and a 2017 train derailment brought another difficult chapter. Hyndman’s river valley still holds those layers of bridge, boats, rail, and mountain roads.