Quite often, the local distributor of trade literature and new construction trends in a small town was the neighborhood building supply center. In Roaring Spring, as in many regional towns and cities, the planing mill fulfilled that function. As a result, the importance of planing mills like Roaring Spring's in shaping the architectural character of communities in this region cannot be overstated. These operations supported builders by providing not only design plans and new ideas, but finished lumber, paint, roofing materials, and pre-fabricated components like windows, doors and molding for thousands of construction projects throughout the region. As the critical link in the local building industry, they have helped set the style for communities throughout central Pennsylvania from the beginning of the railroad era in the 1850s to the present.