BELLEFONTE -- A dusty painting hangs on the wall of a popular Bellefonte watering hole roughly 10 miles away from Beaver Stadium.

It shows Joe Paterno as George Washington standing at the bow of a long canoe while his football team paddles him across the Delaware River in winter.

The painting doesn't stand out in the Hotel Do De's long narrow barroom with two pool tables at one end. The walls of the bar located on High Street across from the county courthouse are cluttered with all sorts of things including mirrors, beer signs and sports pennants.

And while most of the bar's patrons might root for Penn State on the gridiron or basketball court, mention the words "State College" and the normally friendly atmosphere turns a notch sour.

"State College sucks," yells Carol Dann, co-owner of the Hotel Do De from behind the bar. "They think they got the world by the ass and they don't know any more than us, and I'm from the boonies."

As Carol yells, about five people sitting around the bar join in on her sentiment.

"They ought to blow it right off the map," says a middle-aged man in a flannel shirt and jeans who refused to be identified. "The traffic is crazy. The goddamn people think they own the street. They walk right out in front of (your car)."

This is not to say that State College folks aren't welcome at the Do De or in Bellefonte. Tourism became one of the town's major incomes in the mid-1960s.

And the University is Bellefonte's biggest employer, with roughly 450 of its 6,400 residents working there, said Walter Peterson, Bellefonte Borough manager.

But there are many reasons why some residents may not be fond of the college town, which was helped several times in its early history by Bellefonte people.

Before World War II, the two towns were about the same size and competed for business, said Hugh Manchester, a local historian. When the University started to boom after the war, it hurt Bellefonte, which is the Centre County seat.

"As State College grew it eclipsed Bellefonte," Manchester said. "You can't compete with an area that is heavily funded by the state and federal governments."

Bellefonte also began losing businesses to the college town. One of the most upsetting losses to State College was when Centre County's hospital moved there in the late 1960s. The county unemployment office also moved.

"We had access to a lot of things at one time," Caroline Tressler said after buying a lottery ticket at Buscaino's Variety Store on High Street. "For people who don't have cars it's kind of a pain."

But Gloria Horner, executive director of the Bellefonte Chamber of Commerce, gave a different perspective as she sat at her desk in the old Bellfonte Train Station next to Spring Creek.

"State College is close enough that I don't feel like any of these things are lost," Horner said. "They're just a little farther away."

Horner said Bellefonte is far from dying. While having some problems, she said, it is "very healthy and viable."

Another reason many Bellefonte people may dislike the town is because they feel State College people seem arrogant and less friendly.

"Personally, the clientel that I deal with are rude," said Wanda Parnay, a 42-year-old Bellefonte resident who is the deli manager at a grocery store in State College. "They think the sun rises and sets on their ass."

"The slightest violation, they write letters instead of dealing with it on a personal level," she said.

And some Bellefonte people say they are continually fighting the "hick" image.

"I never could understand that," Peterson said. "The label of a hick town, I think comes from the residents who used to live here and want to put that part of their past behind them."

"I try to get the people who I work with in State College to come down here into this bar," Parnay said. "For them to come down to Bellefonte, is to 'come down.' "

Dan Zimmerman, a 36-year-old Bellefonte resident, lived in State College for eight years and attended the University. He explained the difference between the two towns as he sat at a bar stool in the Hotel Do De sipping a long-neck Budweiser.

"It's a matter of age," he said, describing an incident that happened at the bar with a student last month.

Zimmerman had been discussing the war when the college student began yelling at him and took one of his dollar bills from the bar and ripped it up.

"They were young and they were college kids and they were testing their waters," said Zimmerman, a talkative man who wore a brown cap with a fishing license dangling from the side.

"He was testing me and I didn't care if I passed or not," he said.

Zimmerman said he likes both towns but is glad he lives in Bellefonte.

"I thought it would be boring (moving to Bellefonte) and I didn't know anybody," he said. "But I felt relieved to get away from a college town. Bellefonte's more of a family town."

But when it comes to sports, most of the Bellefonte residents are devoted to Penn State until death.

"One night, Bruce Parkhill was here," Parnay said. "I have his autograph on a bar coaster."

When Zimmerman was asked what he thought of State College, the bearded man grinned and said, "Hey, I'm a Lion."