Shade Gap borough
Shade Gap 1966
Did you know? On May 11, 1966, 17-year-old Peggy Ann Bradnick was kidnapped from Shade Gap by William Diller Hollenbaugh. For seven days, federal agents and state police conducted the largest FBI manhunt in U.S. history at that time. Peggy Ann was rescued on May 18 when State Trooper Grant H. Mixell confronted Hollenbaugh at a farm in nearby Burnt Cabins. The ordeal made national headlines, but it's a story many Huntingdon County residents have never heard.
Nothing further from the county histories. The six histories held here end in 1913 and this story belongs to 1966, so there is no passage in them that bears on it. Rather than attach an unrelated page and let it look like corroboration, this story stands on the sources listed below.
What the fact check changed. Every specific checks out: date May 11 1966, age 17, abductor William Diller Hollenbaugh, seven days captive, rescue May 18 at a farm in Burnt Cabins (the Rubeck farm), and State Trooper Grant H. Mixell as the man who fired the fatal shot. One wording nit: the post says 'largest FBI manhunt in U.S. history at that time'; the underlying source says largest manhunt in United States history up to that time, involving over 1,000 federal, state and local officers plus National Guard and civilian volunteers, not an FBI-only operation. history at that time'. Notable omission worth considering: FBI Special Agent Terry R. Anderson was shot and killed by Hollenbaugh on May 17, 1966.
Sources
Checked 2026-07-29 · County history, independently fact checked