V.W.H. Campbell Jr., Post-Gazette Mayor Robert Linn in a 1997 photo. Click photo for larger image.

While speaking to the crowd at Beaver's bicentennial celebration in 2002, Beaver County Commissioner Charlie Camp asked Mayor Robert Linn if he remembered the old fairgrounds in town.

"He said, 'Heavens, no.' Real indignant," said Camp, who wondered why the usually unflappable man had been insulted. Camp later went to the memorial sign at the old site, which said the farm show ended in 1908.

That's when Camp realized Mr. Linn hadn't been born before the grounds closed.

It was an understandable mistake. The mayor has been around forever -- or close to it, anyway.

When he died at home Sunday morning, Mr. Linn was 95 and serving his 58th consecutive year as mayor. The Guinness Book of World Records said Mr. Linn, who first took office in 1946, was the nation's longest-serving mayor.

Friends said that Mr. Linn and the borough of nearly 5,000 residents were a perfect match.

"He was a classy guy, just what you would like," Camp said. "Beaver is such a thriving, old small town. ... He was so dignified in the way he represented the town. He was just the perfect typecast Norman Rockwell would have had for the mayor of Beaver."

And Mr. Linn was at the vanguard of efforts to keep Beaver looking like it comes out of a Rockwell painting.

"He did what he thought was necessary to keep the borough what it is," said Jim Foster, president of council and a councilman for 28 years.

His efforts included a project called Streetscape, which Mr. Linn described as his proudest accomplishment.

During the project, all the utility poles were removed from the three-block length of Main Street, and Victorian-style street lights were installed and new trees planted up and down the thoroughfare.

The borough commissioned a replica of one of the cupolas that adorned a former courthouse building. Called the clock tower, it's now mounted on the front of a bank at Third and College streets.

The citizenry shared Mr. Linn's vision, donating much of the necessary funds for the renovations.

"We've had an old train station converted to 911 headquarters, and a freight station was purchased by the borough and given to the Beaver Area Heritage and made a museum," Foster added. When President Bush made a whistle stop in Beaver during his 2000 campaign, he met with Mr. Linn at the museum.

Good relations with other politicians were standard for the genteel Republican mayor, who always wore a suit and tie on the job.

"He's going to be well-missed by everybody in Beaver County," said Frank Primo, mayor of Monaca, president of the state mayor's association and a friend of Mr. Linn.

"He was always there for you," Primo said. "You could always find him in his office, even at his age. He was just a great guy."

Mr. Linn was first elected to the office, then called burgess, in 1945 -- apparently to his own dismay. He frequently told Police Chief Anthony Hovanec he had actually taken out a newspaper ad to encourage people to vote for his opponent.

Once he was elected, though, the retired Duquesne Light Co. employee grew into the job, which paid a stipend of $2,500 a year. His value to the borough far exceeded that sum, Hovanec said.

"Maybe his longevity had something to do with his activity and involvement with the town of Beaver," Primo said.

Mr. Linn is survived by four daughters, Marty Scheidmantel, of Beaver; Eleanor Hesser, of Beaver; Beth Mitchell, of Virginia Beach, Va.; and Mary Hockenberry, of New Cumberland, Cumberland County; eight grandchildren; and a great-grandson.

Visitation at J.T. Anderson Funeral Home, Beaver, will be tonight and tomorrow from 2 to 4 and 7 to 9 p.m. and Thursday from 9:30 to 10:30 a.m. A funeral service will be at 11 a.m. Thursday at First Presbyterian Church, Beaver. Burial will be in Beaver Cemetery.

Donations may be made to the Memorial Fund of First Presbyterian Church, 252 College Ave., Beaver 15009, or a charity of your choice.