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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.

Mifflin County, Pennsylvania

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

County Seat: Lewistown
Year Organized: 1789
Square Miles: 411

Court House:

20 North Wayne Street
County Courthouse
Lewistown, PA 17044-1770

Etymology - Origin of County Name

Named for Governor Thomas Mifflin. Lewistown

Demographics:

County QuickFacts: Census Bureau Quick Facts

County History

Created on September 19,1789, from parts of Cumberland and Northumberland Counties and named for Governor Thomas Mifflin. Lewistown, the county seat, was laid out in 1790 and incorporated as a borough on April 11, 1795. However, the charter apparently was not accepted, for it was reincorporated on February 6, 1811. It was named for William Lewis, local ironmaster.

The first legitimate settlers had barely arrived after the Albany Purchase of 1745 when the area was involved in the Indian raids of 1755 to 1763. Fort Granville fell to Indian assault in 1756. Lewistown and Mifflintown were rivals for designation as the county seat because there was topographical division at the Narrows. The formation of Juniata County settled the matter. The Pennsylvania Canal arrived in 1829 followed twenty years later by the Pennsylvania Railroad, and the county was also favored by being on the route of the William Penn Highway (later US 22). Despite mountains, the Kishacoquillas Valley is fertile, and limestone, glass quality sand, silica sand, and ganister are profitable. A silk industry was converted to rayon, then to nylon, and now to polyester. In the 1930s Vicose Silk had 4,000 employees, 10 percent of the county's population. Iron and steel were once produced, leaving in their trail the current trades of fabricated forgings, rolled rings, and railroad wheels and axles. Forty percent of the work force is still engaged in manufacturing. One-third of the area is in farmland, and egg and dairy production is high.

Geography

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the county has a total area of 415 square miles (1,074 km²), of which, 412 square miles (1,067 km²) of it is land and 3 square miles (7 km²) of it (0.66%) is water.

Neighboring Counties:

Centre County (north)
Union County (northeast)
Snyder County (east)
Juniata County (southeast)
Huntingdon County (west)

Cities and Towns:

- Bratton	township
- Brown	township
- Burnham	borough	Incorporated Area
- Granville	township
- Juniata Terrace	borough	Incorporated Area
- Kistler	borough	Incorporated Area
- Lewistown (County Seat)	borough	Incorporated Area
- McClure	borough	Incorporated Area
- McVeytown	borough	Incorporated Area
- Menno	township
- Newton Hamilton	borough	Incorporated Area
- Union	township

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."

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