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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.

Monroe County, Pennsylvania

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

County Seat: Stroudsburg
Year Organized: 1836
Square Miles: 607

Court House:

1 Quaker Plaza, Room 201
County Courthouse
Stroudsburg, PA 18360-2141

Etymology - Origin of County Name

Named in honor of James Monroe, the fifth president of the United States

Demographics:

County QuickFacts: Census Bureau Quick Facts

County History

Created on April 1, 1836, from parts of Northampton and Pike Counties and named for President James Monroe. Stroudsburg, the county seat, was incorporated as a borough on February 6, 1815, and named for Jacob Stroud, a settler.

Nicholas DuPui settled at Shawnee in 1729 and used the Old Mine Road to market his wheat in New York. This area saw fighting in the French and Indian War; Fort Penn was on the site that became Stroudsburg. The Brodhead family developed East Stroudsburg. A road to Easton was opened in 1774. Monroe County was created because Easton and Milford were too far away from too many people. After 1856 Monroe grew because it lay on the corridor used by railroads carrying anthracite, although it has no coal of its own. The railroads started a big tourist business for the Delaware Water Gap, and in the 1920s tourism spread deep into the Poconos. Railroad transportation also made competitive Monroe's farm products, lumber, block ice, and mineral products. Monroe once manufactured steam boilers, textiles, wooden products (barrels, clothespins, etc.), and glass. The railroads declined in the 1930s. Today there is some printing, publishing, trucking, and warehousing, as well as a retailing emphasis. Farms occupy only 7 percent of the area and have not been major producers since the decline of the dairy export market about 1900. The county had mushroomed since the 1960s as a desirable residential area, and home construction is strong.

Geography

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the county has a total area of 617 square miles (1,599 km²), of which, 608 square miles (1,576 km²) of it is land and 9 square miles (23 km²) of it (1.44%) is water. Monroe County was formed from the northern section of Northampton County.

Neighboring Counties:

Wayne County (north)
Pike County (northeast)
Sussex County, New Jersey (northeast)
Warren County, New Jersey (east)
Northampton County (south)
Carbon County (west)
Luzerne County (northwest)
Lackawanna County (northwest)

Cities and Towns:

- Barrett	township
- Chestnuthill	township
- Coolbaugh	township
- Delaware Water Gap	borough	Incorporated Area
- East Stroudsburg	borough	Incorporated Area
- Middle Smithfield	township
- Mount Pocono	borough	Incorporated Area
- Pocono	township
- Price	township
- Ross	township
- Stroud	township
- Stroudsburg (County Seat)	borough	Incorporated Area
- Tobyhanna	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."