Between 1807 and 1813 a grist mill, a tannery and a distillery were built. In 1809 the Linton family opened a tavern on Franklin Street where Glosser Bros. store now stands.

David Creed's “mill house” was at Franklin and Washington Streets. There were log houses at two of the corner lots at Franklin and Main Streets, and Isaac Proctor's store was on the third corner.

The first real industry of the town was rafting and the building of flat-boats. Bar iron or pig iron made in the Juniata Valley was hauled by horse pack over the Frankstown Road to Conernaugh Old Town. While the townspeople built flat-boats, the iron was stored or made into bar iron at small forges. Then when the spring floods came the iron was loaded on the flat-boats and shipped down the Conemaugh River to Pittsburgh.

Isaac Proctor, the first store owner and an early iron shipper, also built two keel boats for this purpose. A nail factory and the iron forges were the other early enterprises in the town. Most of this activity took place on the east bank of the Stonycreek between the present Haynes Street and Napoleon Street Bridges.