The Borough of Grove City in Mercer County Pennsylvania is a typical western Pennsylvania town with its bucolic setting. Grove City College overshadows its neighborhoods with a large campus in its center. However, if you look closely, there is another equally unique attraction.
It appears to your left as you cross the Bessemer and Lake Erie Railroad tracks going north on Center Street. One can make out an older castellated building that looks shopworn from decades of use.
The makeup of the building at 317 Erie Street has the appearance of a military structure, which, for many years, it wa
In soldierly use for more than 70 years, the Grove City Armory was a hub for National Guard operations in northwestern Pennsylvania. As a military headquarters, it lodged units of the 28th Infantry Division. When the resident unit moved its operations …show more content…
His burial site is in Grove City, Pennsylvania.
In the last decade of his service to the Commonwealth, each summer Charles Smathers would lead his soldiers during training exercises at a new facility, Fort Indiantown Gap in Lebanon County, Pennsylvania. In many ways it was a second home to him as it has been for many generations of Pennsylvania National Guard members. They perform field exercises, fire their weapons at ranges and, as many of them did, prior to World War II, Vietnam and the other conflicts since it opened in 1931, prepare for war.
In February of 1941, the 56th Brigade, General Smathers final command, was inducted into federal service. The unit moved to Fort Indiantown Gap with the remainder of the 28th Infantry Division.
The facility was inundated with units training for war. To inspire them, several thoroughfares in the facility were renamed for Pennsylvania Guard leaders, most of who served in World War I.
A local newspaper made note of this in an article published in 1941.
One of those so honored was General