The Tioga Point Museum was founded in 1895, the outgrowth of a  local historical society, but with a long standing commitment to educating the community in a broad range of fields.  The museum holds historical objects and documents from Athens, Sayre, and the area directly surrounding these towns as well as collections from around the world.  The museum is located in the Spalding Memorial Library-Museum Building in historic Athens, Pennsylvania.

The Spalding Memorial Library-Museum Building was constructed in 1897-1898 to house a new free-library on the first floor and the two year old Tioga Point Museum on the second floor.  Funds for construction were donated by Jesse Spalding, a wealthy Chicago lumberman who kept strong ties to his birthplace, Athens Township, Pennsylvania.  Mr. Spalding made the donation as a memorial to his son, Robert, and presented the building to the people of Athens and vicinity.  Originally the building was administered by the Tioga Point Museum, but in 1901 control was transferred to the newly-formed Spalding Memorial Library Building Association, and this group has managed the building ever since.  The designer of the Spalding Memorial was the well know Wilkes-Barre architect, Albert H. Kipp.  Since its completion in 1898, this building has served the same function:  to house the Athens Library and the Tioga Point Museum.

The Tioga Point Museum is a unique resource in the community; and an unusual one for any small town because it enables the public to learn about the past of the local area as well as cultures far away.  The museum has made a commitment to interpret its collection in the context of a historic museum, using its original exhibit cases and maintaining its space to appear as it did one hundred years ago when the building was new.

"The Indian calls it TE-A-OGA . . .where the loving waters meet"

    -From Louise Welles Murray's book Old Tioga Point and Early Athens Pennsylvania, 1908

Teaoga, Diahoga or Old Tioga Point is the meeting place of the Chemung and Susquehanna rivers in Northern Pennsylvania.   Murray describes the curious peninsula just above the confluence of the two rivers called Tioga Point as. . .

"The receding, yet encircling hills, only their tops crowned with the forests which once clothed their sides, fade into soft shades in the distance, recalling the title of 'The city of the violet crown' given by the ancients to Grecian Athens, and doubtless to the little hamlet of the long ago by a traveled pioneer."  

There have been various stories about the change of name from Tioga Point to Athens.  "The truth is this:  the Connecticut people took out the grant as Athens (1786); the Pennsylvania settlers (1798) generally gave it the name of Tioga Point, corrupted from the Indian appellation . . . called by the old Indian name Teoka, Teaoga or Diahoga, which, interpreted, means a space or point between the forks of a river or road; 'Point', therefore, being an unnecessary addition."