West Sunbury is a small town that had some big dreams. Although at one time considered the smallest borough in the state, it had hopes it would become the county seat instead of Butler, 10 miles to the south. It’s also the hometown a professional golf champion.

According to the “History of Butler County, Pennsylvania,” published by R.C. Brown &Co.in 1895, “West Sunbury may justly be considered the site of the parent settlements of Clay Township.”

The history recounts Robert Graham erected a log cabin at the present site of the borough in 1808. In 1818 Graham sold his settler’s rights to John and James Gilchrist who also bought a considerable amount of adjoining land.

Ten years later, James Gilchrist employed a surveyor to survey a portion of his tract into town lots, selling a large number of the lots in the following year.

A blacksmith, whose name was given as either Thomas or Robert Dunlap bought four lots and built a log cabin and a log blacksmith shop in 1829 and is considered the first resident of West Sunbury.

The history says Andrew and John Wick opened the borough’s first store in 1835. However, George Boyd opened a large store in 1837 and was also the borough’s first postmaster as well as its first tavern keeper.

The history notes “It was the first town in Butler County to realize the value of stone sidewalks. It was the only one in Pennsylvania where all sidewalks are stone and every street had a walk and a parkway on each side.’

The book noted “In early days of its history it was ambitious of winning the county seat from Butler. In time, however, it gave this up.”

Churches soon followed, the United Presbyterian Church of West Sunbury was organized on May 2, 1840, and on Nov. 7, 1840, the congregation hired Joseph Wasson to construct a 40-square-foot, one-story church building for $700.

However, after Wasson had framed the church, he invited members of the congregation and neighbors to help raise the walls.

According to “An Historical Gazetteer of Butler County, Pa.” by Luanne Eisler, Glee McKnight and Janet Smith, published in 2006, when “the walls raised and roof timbers taken up, a long beam broke throwing men and timbers to the ground.”

No one was killed but several men were severely injured. Wasson left the project and was paid $200. John Brewster and John Brackney were paid $570 to finish the church.

A new larger church was built in1858-59 by Hugh Sproul who was paid $2,100 and the old church building for his efforts. Finally, W.J. McKinney bought the church for $2,100 and moved it to its site in West Sunbury.

The Methodist Episcopal Church was organized in 1849, but according to the “History of Butler County, Pennsylvania,” by 1895, “the church has been in a sea of trouble for the last few years. Mr. Iams of North Washington, in whose circuit it is has led a successful effort to heal dissensions.”

A third church, the Bethesda Evangelical Church was organized in the borough in 1849, but it dissolved in 1875 with its membership merging with a Lutheran church in Springdale in Concord Township.

The borough was also home to the West Sunbury Academy established in 1851 by Adolphus Rebstock whose students “were instructed in the higher classic and Englsh branches,” according to “History of Butler County.

According to the “20th Century History of Butler and Butler County, Pa.” published in 1909, the academy in 1856 was taken over by “the Rev. William Thomas Hamilton from the South, a scholarly gentleman who seems to have taken up teaching as a means of giving employment to his mind rather than filling his purse.”

Hamilton’s tenure increased interest in the academy as well as insuring its financial and educational success.

When the scholarly gentleman left, the Rev. William T. Dickson and his wife who were visiting friends in West Sunbury was convinced to take over. A second academy building was built in 1861 but it was left empty by the events of the Civil War.

According to “History of Butler County,” the students, filled with “patriotic sentiment” formed the Dickson Guards which became Company C of the 11th Pennsylvania Reserves. The Rev. Dickson, himself, joined the regiment as a chaplain serving for a year.

Unfortunately, after the war and after the Rev. Dickson and his wife moved away, the academy fell on hard times and was closed for three years until 1875, when the Dicksons returned and reopened the Academy. The Rev. Dickson died in 1877, but his wife and assistants took over running the academy.

A third building to house the Academy was built in 1886. The former Academy building was sold to the common school board for use as a public schoolhouse.

According to the “History of Butler County Illustrated” published in 1883, “Many lawyers, ministers of the Gospel and prominent men of business have already gone out from it. Doubtless many more will do so in the future.”

But the future seemed to have passed by West Sunbury by the turn of the century. “The 20th Century of Butler and Butler County” published in 1909 noted in 1894, the borough’s population was listed as 360 people. However, the history noted West Sunbury “has seen some prosperous days, though at present its growth is not as rapid owing to the competition of other villages and boroughs possessing … similar attractions.”

Some of those attractions survived into the 20th century. Cynthia Kramer of Butler remembered visiting her grandparents’ farmhouse just outside the borough in the early1960s and realizing it had probably once been used as a stagecoach inn.

She said her grandparents, John and Elizabeth Kolesar, bought the house in 1952 or 1953, after John Kolesar, an emigrant from Hungary, retired from working in a Pittsburgh steel mill. She said the house was built in the 1850s.

“A porch ran around the front of it. It had a pretty fancy door for what you would consider a farmhouse. The impressive entryway was not typical of a farmhouse,” said Kramer. “The entryway had a tall, winding staircase to a landing. You would turn left to two rooms.”

“A door to the rear of the entryway went to the cellar. You walked through another door of the entryway to a sitting room with tall cupboards. Another door led to a dining room. Another door led to the kitchen,” she said. “Off the kitchen was a side porch for the innkeeper.”

Kramer said a second staircase also led up to the two upstairs room while another door led to two very small rooms, a living room and two bedrooms, for the innkeeper and his family.

“There was a potbelly stove in each of the rooms. It was a very interesting place,” she said.

The grandparents sold the house and surrounding 25 acres to a coal company in 1963. The company tore down the house and strip mined the property. Kramer said the site is now the Northwest Sanitary Landfill.

West Sunbury was the hometown of pro baseball player Bob Glenn, who played in two games for the St. Louis Cardinals in 1920, pitched two innings and compiled an earned run average of 0.00 before becoming an instructor in civil highway engineering at Oregon State University for 25 years.

Borough native Bruce Schwab was an offensive tackle at Arizona state before, as an undrafted free agent played for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and Detroit Lions in 2013 and the Houston Texans in 2014.

And West Sunbury native Janet Anderson played golf at Slippery Rock University before turning pro in 1978. She played in the LPGA tour from 1978 to 1997 under her married name of Janet Alex and won the U.S. Women’s Open in 1982.