Rauchtown, PA

Rauchtown is a census-designated place split between Crawford Township in Clinton County and a small portion of Limestone Township in Lycoming County. The community lies at the western end of the Nippenose Valley, between Bald Eagle Mountain and Nippenose Mountain, with Pennsylvania Route 880 running through the valley. The 2010 census counted 726 residents. Rauchtown Creek cuts through the valley, entering a steep gorge at Ravensburg State Park on the community’s southern edge.

The park’s ravens gave it its name, while the Civilian Conservation Corps built picnic shelters, bridges, waterlines, and a dam there in the 1930s. Farm roads and scattered homes fill the valley floor. Ravensburg’s native-stone and rough-sawn-log structures still sit among hardwood forest and rocky slopes. Route 880 and nearby Interstate 80 make this a small mountain-valley community with an easy connection to the larger travel corridor. Rauchtown is a place where a creek, two mountain ridges, a state park, and an old highway share the same narrow Pennsylvania map.