Pinecroft, PA

Pinecroft is a census-designated place in Antis Township, Blair County, Pennsylvania, with 300 residents in the 2020 census. The community lies four miles north of Altoona, along the northwestern edge of the Little Juniata River. Bellwood-Antis School District serves the area, while the river and the roads through southern Blair County give Pinecroft its everyday orientation. The place sits close to a city without losing its small river-valley pattern. The river remains part of daily life.

The Little Juniata carries both an environmental and industrial story. For years, upstream sewage and industrial waste damaged the river, but fishing access and restoration work later helped return the stream to local use. Antis Township’s old Sabbath Rest Foundry also ties Pinecroft to the area’s iron and manufacturing history. Today the river, Bellwood-Antis schools, Altoona’s jobs and services, and the wooded township roads shape the community. Pinecroft is a Pennsylvania place where a recovering trout stream, an old foundry district, a school system, and Altoona’s northern edge meet.