How the Mifflinburg Buggy Museum Started

The Mifflinburg Buggy Museum began with a Sunday conversation in May 1978. A group of Mifflinburg citizens, led by retired history professor Dr. Charles McCool Snyder, had been discussing the need for a museum to celebrate the town's buggy-making heritage. At an earlier meeting, Norman Heiss — son of a buggy maker — and his sons Owen and Glen asked the group a simple question: "Would you like to see a buggy factory?" That invitation turned a local idea into a museum built around a preserved historic factory.

The 1978 Meeting That Started It

The museum's own history page describes the founding moment plainly: an ordinary Sunday in May 1978, and a group of local citizens already talking about how to honor Mifflinburg's buggy-making past. Dr. Charles McCool Snyder, a retired history professor, led that group.

The turning point came from the Heiss family. Norman Heiss was the son of a buggy maker, and he and his sons Owen and Glen offered to show the group a buggy factory. That offer connected the citizens' idea to a real, surviving site rather than a purely commemorative project.

Why a Buggy Museum Made Sense in Mifflinburg

Mifflinburg's identity was tied to buggy manufacturing, which is why the museum's founders framed it as a way to "celebrate the town's buggy making heritage." The museum today displays horse-drawn buggies, carriages, and sleighs from the 19th and early 20th centuries, along with the craftsmanship behind them.

The town's deeper roots go back further than the buggy era:

• In 1792, Elias and Catharina Youngman (Jungman) settled on land given to them by Catharina's father.
• They divided Youngmanstown into 60' x 120' plots to sell to other settlers.
• Buyers could also purchase outlots for grazing livestock in one-acre increments.

The Heiss Family Background

The Heiss name runs through both the museum's founding and the town's buggy trade. According to the museum:

• Peter Heiss and Catherine Williams married on September 2, 1848, in Cumberland, Pennsylvania.
• Peter was a minister and moved his family from Dauphin County to Luzerne County, then Clinton County, and finally Union County.
• In 1855, they purchased a 141-acre farm in Forest Hill (West Buffalo Township, Union County).

Norman Heiss, whose offer to show the factory set the museum in motion, was a son of a buggy maker — linking the family's later generation directly to the industry the museum preserves.

Visiting the Museum Today

If the founding story is what draws you, the museum is open seasonally:

The museum also offers membership plans through its website. The site notes it is made possible in part through a grant from The First Community Foundation Partnership of Pennsylvania.

For anyone tracing how a small Pennsylvania town turned its industrial past into a museum, the answer is short: it started with citizens who wanted to remember the buggy trade, and a buggy maker's family who offered to open the factory doors.