WAYNESBORO, Pa. — Sherry Cheatham, coordinator of the Heritage Center in Chambersburg, offered information on that Franklin County attraction.
The center, located on the square in Chambersburg, was built in 1915 as the Valley National Bank. It was designed by famed architect Frank Furness of Philadelphia. Furness, a Congressional Medal of Honor winner in the Civil War, was responsible for many well-known structures, including the Philadelphia Academy of Art and University of Pennsylvania Library.
He also designed hundreds of stations for the B&O and Reading Railroads. The center building operated as a bank until 1963. It was purchased by the Chambersburg Area Development Corporation in 1999 and is now operated by the Greater Chambersburg Chamber of Commerce.
Built of Georgian marble, the building features a ceiling with glass panes and wrought-iron-bound windows. It now houses a museum that emphasizes history and artifacts of the area with an emphasis on the Colonial period through the Civil War.
It includes a gift shop, which helps fund the center along with donations from the Chamber. Chambersburg has historical significance as the only Union town that was burned during the Civil War and also has been a historic crossroads due to the intersection of U.S. 30 with U.S. 11 in the borough.
