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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.

Lawrence County, Pennsylvania

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

County Seat: New Castle
Year Organized: 1849
Square Miles: 360

Court House:

430 Court Street
Government Center
New Castle, PA 16101-3593

Etymology - Origin of County Name

Named for Commodore Oliver Hazard Perry's first flagship, the US Brig Lawrence, which had been named for Captain James Lawrence, a naval hero.

Demographics:

County QuickFacts: Census Bureau Quick Facts

County History

Created March 20, 1849, from parts of Beaver and Mercer Counties and named for Commodore Oliver Hazard Perry's first flagship, the US Brig Lawrence, which had been named for Captain James Lawrence, a naval hero. New Castle, the county seat, was laid out in 1802, incorporated as a borough on March 25, 1825, and chartered as a city on February 25, 1869. It is not certain whether it was named for Newcastle, England, or New Castle, Delaware.

This area was formally acquired from Native Americans by the 1784 Treaty of Fort Stanwix, the "Last Purchase," and migrants from Allegheny County began to settle in 1793. Newcastle quickly grew to be an industrial center because the county had limestone quarries, iron ore, and coal. Its stone blast furnaces for making iron, started in 1838, were located in both Beaver and Mercer Counties, and the county was created to eliminate that confusing situation. Canals arrived in the 1830s and the Pennsylvania Railroad in 1850. Connection with Youngstown, Ohio was very important. The 1890s were the "Golden Age of Industry," as Lawrence became the world's leader in tin plating. Lawrence also produced hardware, paper, pottery, cement, and linseed oil. There was some oil production. The industrial complex brought vast numbers of southern and eastern Europeans, beginning in 1875. The population peaked at 113,000 in 1960, but deindustrialization became pronounced in the 1970s.

As in Berks County, there was always farming outside the factory areas. Today, 42 percent of the county is farmland. It ranks about midway in value of farm products among the sixty-seven counties.

Geography

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the county has a total area of 363 square miles (940 km²), of which, 360 square miles (934 km²) of it is land and 2 square miles (6 km²) of it (0.63%) is water.

Neighboring Counties:

Mercer County (north)
Butler County (east)
Beaver County (south)
Columbiana County, Ohio (southwest)
Mahoning County, Ohio (west)

Cities and Towns:

- Bessemer	borough	Incorporated Area
- Ellport	borough	Incorporated Area
- Ellwood City	borough	Incorporated Area
- Enon Valley	borough	Incorporated Area
- Little Beaver	township
- Neshannock	township
- New Beaver	borough	Incorporated Area
- New Castle (County Seat)	city	Incorporated Area
- New Wilmington	borough	Incorporated Area
- North Beaver	township
- Plain Grove	township
- Pulaski	township
- S.N.P.J.	borough	Incorporated Area
- Scott	township
- South New Castle	borough	Incorporated Area
- Union	township
- Volant	borough	Incorporated Area
- Wampum	borough	Incorporated Area
- Wilmington	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."