One of Williamsport’s oldest landmarks will be effaced as such when the 75-year-old Park Hotel is remodeled into a home for the aged through operations to begin in early October.

Built three-quarters of a century ago it was known in its earliest days as the Herdic House. It was named for Peter Herdic, who built it in 1864. Around the hotel and that section of the city were woven the tales of the schemes which Peter Herdic had for transferring the heart of the city from the present location to a point one mile to the west.

He took no chances on his hotel being isolated however, for he built the Park Hotel railroad station in conjunction with it, specifying when he gave the railroad the right-of-way that it must maintain it for a station and ticket office at the very doors of his hotel.

The five- acre property and hotel were purchased on January 1, 1938, by the Laura V. Stuart Memorial Foundation, which is now ready to remodel the structure for use as a home for aged persons. The memorial will be known as the Park Home.

Present plans call for the removal of the top two upper stories of the structure and for extensive remodeling to provide living accommodations for 100 persons in the lower two floors. The work will be completed in three to six months, and every effort will be made to preserve the unusually fine Victorian architecture of the original structure.