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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.

Jefferson County, Pennsylvania

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

County Seat: Brookville
Year Organized: 1804
Square Miles: 656

Court House:

155 Main Street, Jefferson Place
County Courthouse Annex
Brookville, PA 15825-1281

Etymology - Origin of County Name

Named for President Thomas Jefferson.

Demographics:

County QuickFacts: Census Bureau Quick Facts

County History

Created on March 26, 1804 from part of Lycoming County and named for President Thomas Jefferson. It was attached to Westmoreland County until 1806 and then to Indiana County until 1830, when it was formally organized. Brookvillle, the county seat, was laid out in 1830 and incorporated as a borough on April 9, 1834. It is said to have been named for the numerous brooks and in the vicinity.

Punxsutawney was a Delaware Indian village on the Great Shamokin Path. Pennsylvania acquired the region at the Treaty of Fort Stanwix, or "Last Purchase," in 1784. Lumber, marketed via conveniently southward flowing streams, was the first industry and also led to boat building. Large-scale coal mining began after the Civil War, assisted by a Pennsylvania Railroad trunk line (opened in 1873), English capital investors, the Pennsylvania Geological Survey, and good advertising. Mining fell off in the mid-1920s due both to labor discontent and the falling coal market, but Jefferson is still the state's ninth most productive bituminous county. Natural gas made possible a glass manufacturing industry beginning in 1897. Although farms cover one-fifth of the county, agricultural cash receipts are not high. Manufacture of building structural elements and mining-related items is important in today's economy. The value added from manufactures increased 56 percent between 1987 and 1992. Punxsutawney's Groundhog Day is one of the nation's favorite myths, and the Cook Forest State Park (shared with Clarion County) is the only significant preserved stand of primeval hemlock and white pine trees in the state.

Geography

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the county has a total area of 657 square miles (1,701 km²), of which, 655 square miles (1,698 km²) of it is land and 1 square miles (4 km²) of it (0.21%) is water.

Neighboring Counties:

Forest County (north)
Elk County (northeast)
Clearfield County (east)
Indiana County (south)
Armstrong County (southwest)
Clarion County (west)

Cities and Towns:

- Barnett	township
- Bell	township
- Big Run	borough	Incorporated Area
- Brockway	borough	Incorporated Area
- Brookville (County Seat)	borough	Incorporated Area
- Clover	township
- Coolspring	township
- Corsica	borough	Incorporated Area
- Falls Creek	borough	Incorporated Area
- Gaskill	township
- Hamilton	township
- Heath	township
- Henderson	township
- McCalmont	township
- Punxsutawney	borough	Incorporated Area
- Reynoldsville	borough	Incorporated Area
- Ringgold	township
- Rose	township
- Snyder	township
- Summerville	borough	Incorporated Area
- Sykesville	borough	Incorporated Area
- Timblin	borough	Incorporated Area
- Union	township
- Warsaw	township
- Winslow	township
- Worthville	borough	Incorporated Area
- Young	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."