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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.

Lackawanna County, Pennsylvania

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

County Seat: Scranton
Year Organized: 1878
Square Miles: 459

Court House:

200 Adams Avenue
County Courthouse
Scranton, PA 18503-1607

Etymology - Origin of County Name

It was named for the Lackawanna River, a name meaning "stream that forks."

Demographics:

County QuickFacts: Census Bureau Quick Facts

County History

Created on August 13, 1878 from part of Luzerne County, was the last county to be created. It was named for the Lackawanna River, a name meaning "stream that forks." Scranton, the county seat, was laid out in 1841, incorporated as a borough in 1856, and became a city on April 23, 1866. It was named for the Scranton family, its founders. The county adopted a home rule charter in April 1976.

The last county created, Lackawanna lies in the area bitterly disputed with Connecticut settlers in the Yankee Pennamite Wars and with the Indians who treasured the Wyoming Valley. Scranton, founded 1840 at Slocum Hollow, was Wilkes Barre's rival and as the northern anthracite field expanded became wealthier. The Scranton family has been leaders for more than a century. The Scranton brothers developed anthracite iron smelting which led to the Lackawanna Iron and Steel Company, a major economic factor until it was moved to New York in 1902. The area was a center of labor unrest in 1877 and in all the major anthracite mine strikes. The coal industry declined greatly in the late 1920s, revived during World War II, and fell again in the 1960s. A small amount of coal is still surface mined. Railroads once flourished, as the principal means of exporting the coal. Textiles—silk, succeeded by rayon, followed by nylon—have been important products. Lumber is still produced, but Lackawanna is not a significant farming county; 14 percent of the land is farmland. Unemployment became a problem for the region after World War II. William Warren Scranton, banker and politician, was among the first to plan an economic recovery after the coal industry collapsed in the 1960s, emphasizing a diversified business environment.

Geography

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the county has a total area of 465 square miles (1,203 km²), of which, 459 square miles (1,188 km²) of it is land and 6 square miles (15 km²) of it (1.27%) is water.

Neighboring Counties:

Susquehanna County (north)
Wayne County (east)
Monroe County (southeast)
Luzerne County (southwest)
Wyoming County (west)

Cities and Towns:

- Archbald	borough	Incorporated Area
- Blakely	borough	Incorporated Area
- Carbondale	city	Incorporated Area
- Clarks Green	borough	Incorporated Area
- Clarks Summit	borough	Incorporated Area
- Clifton	township
- Dalton	borough	Incorporated Area
- Dickson City	borough	Incorporated Area
- Dunmore	borough	Incorporated Area
- Elmhurst	township
- Fell	township
- Glenburn	township
- Greenfield	township
- Jermyn	borough	Incorporated Area
- Jessup	borough	Incorporated Area
- La Plume	township
- Mayfield	borough	Incorporated Area
- Moosic	borough	Incorporated Area
- Moscow	borough	Incorporated Area
- Newton	township
- North Abington	township
- Old Forge	borough	Incorporated Area
- Olyphant	borough	Incorporated Area
- Ransom	township
- Roaring Brook	township
- Scott	township
- Scranton (County Seat)	city	Incorporated Area
- South Abington	township
- Spring Brook	township
- Taylor	borough	Incorporated Area
- Throop	borough	Incorporated Area
- West Abington	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."