Venue
Historic walking tour of Old Town
The Historical Society's self-guided 25-stop walk through Old Town: the 1902 hardware store that was the first business, the 1904 and 1922 schools, the churches, the Masonic Temple and the site of the opera house.
Check current hours on the business’s own page.
A self-guided tour of 25 numbered stops through Old Town Johnstown, starting at the Parish House: Fairbairn & Parish Hardware & Lumber, the town’s first business (October 1902), now the Senior Center; the 1904 Union High School and the 1922 high school used until 1967; the 1904 Methodist Episcopal church, now the Hope Center; the First Baptist Church (1908–09); the 1928 Masonic Temple, now a residence; the W.H. McCormick Mercantile Co. at 1 N Parish; the site of the 1914 Giesler Opera House; and the Mohawk Condensed Milk plant that ran for 66 years from 1910. Many of the stops are private homes, so the Society asks walkers to keep to the public sidewalk. Ask the Society for the map.
Photo: Courtesy of the Johnstown Historical Society, Ltd
Photo: Courtesy of the Johnstown Historical Society, Ltd
At a glance walk · history · free
Checked November 2, 2026 against jhsco.org. Hours and phone numbers change fastest, so the business’s own page is the record. Report a correction
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In the guides
Read about Historic walking tour of Old Town
- Explore Johnstown: five places in walking order
Crepes on Parish Avenue, the Parish House on a morning it is open, the Historical Society's 25-stop walk and the park next door, all from one parking spot in Old Town. Then a booked evening at the dinner theater out at 2534.
- Johnstown history: John's town to boomtown
A rancher who bought land at eleven dollars an acre ahead of the railroad and named the town for his sick son, a sugar factory that ran 75 years, a meteorite that interrupted a funeral, and a farm town that grew by three-quarters in a decade. The short history of Johnstown, with each claim resting on a source.
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