Blair County PA Archives Biographies.....Blake, B. M. ???? - 
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Judy Banja http://www.genrecords.net/emailregistry/vols/00004.html#0000757 July 19, 2025, 7:12 pm

Source: Pen Pictures of Friends and Reminiscent Sketches, Altoona, PA: William F. Gable & Co., Mirror Press, 1911
Author: J. N. Tillard

    He Has Moved The Town Along

                 B. M. BLAKE Has Changed The Scenery in Altoona
                     by Moving Domiciles by The Wholesale -
                       The City Improved With Every Move

ALTOONA was not the sort of a community that grew up in a night. While it has 
reached quite respectable proportions as a city during the last half-century, it 
has not many buildings that are fifty years old or that have reached that age 
without many changes. The city has been builded, for the most part, by toiling, 
frugal mechanics of small means, who builded, not as they would, but as they 
could.
  The essentials of shelter and protection from the elements were the first 
consideration, and architectural effects were left for the development of more 
prosperous days. Having secured a building lot, the mechanic of long ago planned 
such a structure as would come within his limited means and at the same time 
afford an adequate living place for himself and family until such times as he 
could afford to make additions to his domicile.
  The Altoona mechanic builded along safe lines and there was probably no other 
town in the country where so few real estate mortgages were foreclosed on 
account of the owner failing to meet payments. A good part of this conservative 
management was due to the excellent judgment displayed by the officials of local 
building associations, from whom most of the money for building purposes was 
borrowed. The men would not lend a greater amount of money on any building 
proposition than conservative business methods warranted, thereby saving at once 
the stockholders from loss and the builder from over-reaching himself.
  As a result of this policy, the town, especially the East Side, was largely 
covered with small buildings, and when larger wealth came with the passing 
years, they stood in the way of improvements on valuable ground. But the frugal 
habits acquired by years of saving would not allow their owners to stand for 
their demolition, and they were either moved back on the same lot or transferred 
to some other locality, not unfrequently some distance away.
  This condition of affairs made an opening for a new industry and the men and 
the hour met when B. M. Blake, with Andrew Kipple as a silent but vigorous 
partner, went into the house-moving business. Mr. Blake was born in Duncansville 
in 1844, coming to this city in 1850, when the town was a very small place 
indeed. He has seen it develop from a series of frog ponds to what it is now, 
and has had quite a little to do with its progress, as he has kept a section of 
it literally moving since 1875. He attended the earliest common schools 
established in the community, and when he got old enough, learned the carpenter 
trade and then went to work in the car shops. While there he was associated with 
Andrew Kipple, the foreman of the freight shop and boss wrecker, in the clearing 
up of the numerous smashups that occurred along the line of the Pennsylvania 
Railroad.
  "Andy" Kipple was a master hand at performances of this sort and the wreck 
that he could not take the kinks out of without stopping a minute to think it 
over, was so hopeless that there was nothing left to do but apply the torch. 
Under such tutelage as this Mr. Blake learned a few tricks himself in the way of 
handling bulky bodies by the use of hydraulic jacks, screw jacks, fulcrum and 
lever and block and fall. It was simply a matter of applying the power in the 
right place and the trick was done.
  Sizing up the situation, Mr. Blake saw that the house-moving business in 
Altoona was going to develop into large proportions as the years went on, and 
providing himself with the proper equipment, he left the shops and became a 
professional house mover with his old boss as a contributing and consulting 
partner. Some time later, he bought Mr. Kipple's interest in the enterprise and 
conducted it alone.
  Moving houses over the streets in the early days was a somewhat more difficult 
feat than it is now since so many cartways are paved, affording a smooth and 
solid track over which to roll the buildings. The hills and hollows were always 
here, but these have been much modified by grading and the deep ditches and 
chuck holes that garnished most of the streets twenty-five years ago, have 
disappeared. Mr. Blake without accident moved buildings up and down grades and 
across chasms in a way that was astonishing. There was no obstacle too great for 
him to overcome, though he frequently had to cut mighty close corners and do a 
lot of bridge work.
  While a majority of the buildings he moved were of frame construction, and he 
only had to keep them steady enough to avoid breaking the plastering or throwing 
down the chimneys, he never hesitated to tackle solid brick walls if the job 
came his way. It was not unusual for him to move a dwelling with all the 
furniture in, the family performing all their usual functions of housekeeping 
except firing the cook stove. He laid down a track of big timbers on as near a 
level as the character of the ground would permit; took the building off its 
foundations on rollers and heaved ahead. A continuous track was preserved by 
bringing the ground timbers forward and astonishing speed was made in the 
flitting.
  Among his most famous exploits was the moving of the Fourth Ward School 
Building from Seventh Avenue and Fifteenth Street to Fourth Avenue and 
Eighteenth Street; the old McCormick homestead from Eighth Avenue and Fifteenth 
Street to Sixth Avenue between Sixteenth and Seventeenth Streets; and a number 
of small brick buildings. He raised the brick stack, one hundred feet high, at 
Aetna Furnace, sixteen feet and built a new base under it; raised wholesale the 
roof of the old Eleventh Avenue Opera House so that another story could be added 
and raised the roof of the Altoona Hospital for the same purpose. He moved the 
big brick building at the railroad station at Mt. Union, when the station was 
changed some years ago, and moved the hotel at Frugality.
  Though he is not as young as he used to be, he is still at it, having taken 
out a permit a few days ago to move a building quite a distance over the East 
Side hills. He has surely done his part to keep the town moving in his time.
  Besides doing a big lot of useful professional work, he has always been a good 
citizen from every point of view. He has discharged his civic duties with zeal 
and fidelity, though he has never been an active politician or an aspirant for 
public office. He was one of the founders and pillars of the Eighth Avenue 
Methodist Church, and was always the type of citizen who could be depended upon 
to do his part for the common weal. When Johnstown was almost swept away by the 
flood of 1889, he went over there and his practical experience was of untold 
value in saving from the general ruin such dwellings as it was possible to put 
into serviceable condition.
  He is now drawing toward the close of a long and busy life, and in the days to 
come there will scarcely be so much need of the peculiar skill he developed in 
this community for the reason that more substantial structures are being put up, 
but he has been a great factor in the community's life, and his numerous friends 
will join in wishing him many years of pleasant ease before he goes hence.

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