Some of my family came from Ashtola and this is a town I have not heard of. Can anyone tell me what it is like there today? It must be near Windber. The biggest industry around the turn of the century was timbering. Edward Vose Babcock and five associates chartered the Babcock Lumber Company in 1898 after purchasing 17 tracts with 6,415 acres in Somerset County for $100,000. A sawmill was constructed along Shade Creek and equipped with a new Allis double-acting band saw, which enabled logs to be cut from both directions. A standard-gauge logging railroad was constructed through the Clear Shade area, and the town of Ashtola grew. In 1901, Babcock Lumber Company grew by incorporating the James Curry & Son operation. The company became the fourth largest producer of lumber in the state, producing 64 million feet of lumber in 1905. In 1913, the last log was cut at the Ashtola mill. In just 15 years, the Babcock Company had clear-cut the large virgin forest along the Allegheny Front, which today is known as the Babcock Division of Gallitzin State Forest.