Loretto Borough Hall, PO Box 7, Loretto PA 15940.
Phone: 814‑472‑8995.
Beginnings [1]
This town was so named by Father Gallitzin after the famous Loretto on the Adriatic coast, Italy. A plan of the town is on file in Recorder's office, Ebensburg, Pa. It is a neat village, containing three rows of lots, divided by two principal streets, sixty feet wide, running fifty-three degrees east of north. St. Mary's street is at present the main thoroughfare, and it runs parallel to the lower street, St. Joseph's, which was the original highway. Three cross streets, each sixty feet wide, intersect the two named streets at right angles within the plot of the borough. The central row of lots between St. Mary's and St. Joseph's streets contains forty eight lots, each one hundred and sixty feet in depth. The exterior rows contain the same number of lots, forty-eight, but these are two hundred feet in depth. The first cross street, as one goes north through the town, is named St. John's street, the second, which leads on to St. Francis' College, St. Peter's, and the third, St. Paul's. Half way between the cross streets there is an alley; and an alley also at the rear of each of the exterior rows of lots. The lots are numbered from North to South in each row. Thus the, town is divided into twelve squares, of twelve lots each.