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Pennsylvania Counties

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Pennsylvania Counties

There are sixty-seven counties of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania in the United States of America. The city of Philadelphia is coterminous with Philadelphia County, and governmental functions have been consolidated since 1854.

Greene County, Pennsylvania

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

County Seat: Waynesburg
Year Organized: 1796
Square Miles: 576

Court House:

93 E. High Street
County Office Building
Waynesburg, PA 15370-1839

Etymology - Origin of County Name

Named for Major General Anthony Wayne, was laid out in 1796

Demographics:

County QuickFacts: Census Bureau Quick Facts

County History

Created on February 9, 1796, from part of Washington County and named for General Nathanael Greene. Waynesburg, the county seat, named for Major General Anthony Wayne, was laid out in 1796 and incorporated as a borough on January 29, 1816.

First permanent settlement is believed to have been the Swan-VanMeter-Hughes party from Virginia, in 1767. Once the Indian hostility and Whiskey Rebellion problems had passed, this county was formed in order to benefit small farmers. Beginning with the Merino Sheep bonanza of the 1820s, wool became a major product. Although overshadowed by production elsewhere in the world, Greene still leads other Pennsylvania counties in sheep (occasionally challenged by Washington County). When the Monongahela River slackwater system reached Rice's Landing in 1857, it became easier to market products. Bituminous coal mining began in 1902; in recent years this been Pennsylvania's highest producing county, nearly all from subsurface mines. Natural gas was also found in abundance. Forty percent of the land is in farms, although cash receipts from agriculture are low. The tradition that it rains somewhere in the county every July 29 is a popular myth begun by a local pharmacist. Home of Governor Edward Martin.

Geography

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the county has a total area of 578 square miles (1,497 km²), of which, 576 square miles (1,491 km²) of it is land and 2 square miles (5 km²) of it (0.36%) is water.

Neighboring Counties:

Washington County (north)
Fayette County (east)
Monongalia County, West Virginia (south)
Wetzel County, West Virginia (southwest)
Marshall County, West Virginia (west)

Cities and Towns:

- Aleppo	township
- Carmichaels	borough	Incorporated Area
- Center	township
- Clarksville	borough	Incorporated Area
- Cumberland	township
- Dunkard	township
- Gilmore	township
- Greene	township
- Greensboro	borough	Incorporated Area
- Jefferson	borough	Incorporated Area
- Rices Landing	borough	Incorporated Area
- Richhill	township
- Springhill	township
- Waynesburg (County Seat)	borough	Incorporated Area
- Whiteley	township

County Resources:

Enter County Resources and Information Here

County Resources

The history of our nation was a prolonged struggle to define the relative roles and powers of our governments: federal, state, and local. And the names given the counties, our most locally based jurisdictions, reflects the "characteristic features of this country!"

But age, size and colorful names of our counties isn't the only reason to explore counties' role in American history, or the history of county government itself. In fact, the story of county government reflects the larger meanings of American history.

Today's counties are the most flexible, locally responsive and creative governments in the US. They are the most diverse, varying in size, population, geography, and governmental structure. In their politics and policies, they express a 1990's political slogan "Think globally, act locally."