Pennsylvania State...
|
|
|
|
|
| |
Pennsylvania Counties
|
|
 |
|
|
| |
|
|
Lehigh County, Pennsylvania
Lehigh County History, Geography, Demographics, Cities and Towns, and Education
County Seat: Allentown
Year Organized: 1812
Square Miles: 347 |
Court House: 17 South Seventh Street
County Courthouse
Allentown, PA 18101-2400
|
Etymology - Origin of County Name
named for the Lehigh River. The name Lehigh is derived from the
German "Lecha," which comes from the Native American term "Uchauwekink,"
meaning, "where there are forks."
Demographics:
County QuickFacts:
Census Bureau Quick Facts
History
Created on March 6, 1812, from part
of Northampton County and named for the Lehigh River. The name Lehigh is derived
from the German "Lecha," which comes from the Native American term "Uchauwekink,"
meaning, "where there are forks." Allentown, the county seat, was laid out about
1762 and named for Chief Justice William Allen of Pennsylvania, a local
landowner. It was incorporated as the Borough of Northampton on March 18, 1811,
renamed Allentown in 1838, and chartered as a city on March 12, 1867. The county
adopted a home rule charter in November 1975.
Although English, Scotch-Irish, and Welsh were in the Saucon Township area
before 1729, large numbers of Swiss and Germans came to the Lehigh Valley after
that. Philadelphians allied with the Penn proprietors received large grants and
sold them to settlers. Allentown was designed to take advantage of the road to
Reading. Canal development in the 1820s preceded the growth of industry.
Railroads arrived in the 1840s, and Allentown grew large in the 1850s. Small
iron furnaces using local ore flourished until phased out by competition
elsewhere. By the late nineteenth century the slate industry, grain milling, and
the manufacture of shoes, cotton, woolens, silk, cigars, beer, and cement were
major enterprises, but each has been overcome by competitors elsewhere since the
1930s. Machinery manufacture was dominant until the deindustrialization period
of the 1970s. Forty-three percent of the land is farmed, and the value of
harvested crops exceeds that of animal products. Lehigh is in the top quarter of
the counties in total farm income.
Neighboring Counties:
Cities and Towns:
|
- Alburtis |
borough |
Incorporated Area |
|
- Allentown
(County
Seat) |
city |
Incorporated Area |
|
- Bethlehem |
city |
Incorporated Area |
|
- Catasauqua |
borough |
Incorporated Area |
|
- Coopersburg |
borough |
Incorporated Area |
|
- Coplay |
borough |
Incorporated Area |
|
- Emmaus |
borough |
Incorporated Area |
|
- Lower Macungie |
township |
|
|
- Lower Milford |
township |
|
|
- Lowhill |
township |
|
|
- Macungie |
borough |
Incorporated Area |
|
- North Whitehall |
township |
|
|
- Slatington |
borough |
Incorporated Area |
|
- South Whitehall |
township |
|
|
- Upper Macungie |
township |
|
|
- Upper Milford |
township |
|
|
- Upper Saucon |
township |
|
|
- Weisenberg |
township |
|
|
- Whitehall |
borough |
Incorporated Area |
County Resources:
Enter County Resources and Information Here
|
|
County Resource Guide
|
|
|
The history of our nation can be seen as a prolonged struggle to define the relative roles and powers of our governments: federal, state, and local. And the names we've given our counties, our most locally based jurisdictions, reflects the "characteristic
features of our 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." |
|
|
| |
Penn Foster High School
|
|
|
|
