Beaver County, Pennsylvania

Beaver County History, Geography, Demographics, Cities and Towns, and Education

Etymology - Origin of County Name

named for the Beaver River

Demographics:

County QuickFacts: Census Bureau Quick Facts

History

Created on March 12, 1800 from parts of Allegheny and Washington Counties, and named for the Beaver River. It was attached to Allegheny County until 1803. Beaver, the county seat, was incorporated as a borough on March 29, 1802.

Beaver's many water routes gave rise to several Indian communities, most memorably Logstown. Pennsylvania acquired the area from Indians in the two treaties of Fort Stanwix (1768 and 1784), known as the New Purchase and the Last Purchase. Permanent settlement began in 1772. Fort McIntosh was important during the Revolution. "Mad Anthony" Wayne's Legionville was the training base for his 1794 Fallen Timbers campaign. The many streams favored the growth of water mills, and a canal reached eventually to Erie. Navigational improvement of the Ohio River progressed continually from the 1830s to 1936. The Harmonists utopian group arrived in 1824, flourished economically for several decades, and then lost vitality. Quality glass and pottery making were early industries. An oil boom took place from 1860 to 1890; gas is still important. In the early twentieth century "Big Steel" arrived in the form of Jones and Laughlin Co. at Aliquippa, Crucible Steel at Midland, and the American Bridge unit of US Steel at Ambridge. This made the population swell. Trolleys made commuting to Pittsburgh easy by 1905. The Conway Railroad Yard became the world's biggest dispatching point, and the entire Ohio Valley became one industrial park. Many innovative manufacturers came to the area to produce items such as seamless pipe, oil drilling gear, steel barges, auto parts, and electric-arc steel. Westinghouse Electric chose the county as did oil refiners Valvoline and Arco. Deindustrialization, a national trend, was severe in the area by the 1970s, although the Shippingport nuclear plant and Greater Pittsburgh Airport offset the impact of factory closings. In the period 1987 to 1992 value added to the economy from manufacturing increased by 92 percent. Some bituminous coal is surface mined, and one-fifth of the land is farmed.
 

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