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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.

Sullivan County, Pennsylvania

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

County Seat: Laporte
Year Organized: 1847
Square Miles: 450

Court House:

Main and Muncy Streets
County Courthouse
La Porte, PA 18626-0000

Etymology - Origin of County Name

Named for Senator Charles C. Sullivan, Butler District, who took an active part in procuring passage of the bill.

Demographics:

County QuickFacts: Census Bureau Quick Facts

County History

Created on March 15, 1847 from part of Lycoming County and named for Senator Charles C. Sullivan, Butler District, who took an active part in procuring passage of the bill. Laporte, the county seat, was laid out in 1850 and incorporated as a borough in 1853. It was named for John La Porte, surveyor general of Pennsylvania from 1845 to 1851.

The area was included in the New Purchase from the Indians in 1768, but Connecticut settlers who had been ousted from the Wyoming Valley entered and had to be run off by Pennsylvania agents. Pennsylvania settlers were themselves pushed out by the Indian and Tory attacks of 1778–1780. The Genesee Road from New York opened up the area, and in 1794 a French refugee founded Dushore. A woolen industry was productive from 1802 until about 1900. Lumber and the related leather tanning industry were most productive from 1850 to 1900. Coal was discovered and mined by the Sullivan and State Line Railroad after 1871. Eagles Mere became a famous tourist resort in the late nineteenth century. The population peaked at 12,134 in 1900. Today tourism and some lumber and leather production survives. Farms cover 11 percent of the land but agricultural receipts rank low among the sixty-seven counties. State game lands and forest lands are extensive.

Geography

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the county has a total area of 452 square miles (1,172 km²), of which, 450 square miles (1,165 km²) of it is land and 2 square miles (6 km²) of it (0.53%) is water.

Elevation ranges from 2593 ft at North Mountain in Davidson Township to 779 ft on Loyalsock Creek at the Lycoming County line.

Neighboring Counties:

Bradford County (north)
Wyoming County (east)
Luzerne County (southeast)
Columbia County (south)
Lycoming County (west)

Cities and Towns:

- Cherry	township
- Colley	township
- Davidson	township
- Dushore	borough	Incorporated Area
- Eagles Mere	borough	Incorporated Area
- Forksville	borough	Incorporated Area
- Fox	township
- Hillsgrove	township
- Laporte (County Seat)	borough	Incorporated Area

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."