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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.

Union County, Pennsylvania

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

County Seat: Lewisburg
Year Organized: 1813
Square Miles: 317

Court House:

103 South Second Street
County Courthouse
Lewisburg, PA 17837-1903

Etymology - Origin of County Name

Its name is an allusion to the Federal Union.

Demographics:

County QuickFacts: Census Bureau Quick Facts

County History

Created on March 22, 1813, from part of Northumberland County. Its name is an allusion to the Federal Union. Lewisburg, the county seat after 1855, was laid out in 1785 and named for Ludwig (Anglicized to "Lewis") Derr, its founder. It was incorporated as a borough on March 21, 1822. New Berlin was the county seat from 1815 to 1855.

Settlers appeared in the Buffalo Valley in 1750, and the area was raided during the French and Indian War. Indians held little girls from the LeRoy and Leininger families captive for years. At Fort Stanwix in 1768 Pennsylvania purchased the area from several Indian nations. New settlers arrived via the Tulpehocken Road, although Indians raided again in 1777. The Evangelical Association was founded in New Berlin, and its activities were centered there for many years. In 1830, the Western Branch Division of the Pennsylvania Canal linked Lewisburg to the outside world, and New Berlin ceased growing when the county seat was transferred to Lewisburg. The Panic of 1873 eclipsed Lewisburg, however. Between 1865 and 1910, Mifflinburg grew to be the horse buggy capital of America. Dinkey railroads exploited lumber in remote parts of county. Iron making from local ore was successful until 1865, but could not compete after that. Today, farms cover almost one-third of the county, and it is competitive in the production of field grains, poultry, and dairy products. Furniture and cabinet manufacture, yarn and apparel, printing, road paving materials, and cable assemblies are major businesses in the county. Governor Simon Snyder was from Selinsgrove, which was part of Union County until 1855.

Geography

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the county has a total area of 317 square miles (821 km²), of which, 317 square miles (820 km²) of it is land and 0 square miles (1 km²) of it (0.12%) is water.

Neighboring Counties:

Lycoming County (north)
Northumberland County (east)
Snyder County (south)
Mifflin County (west)
Centre County (northwest)

Cities and Towns:

- Buffalo	township
- East Buffalo	township
- Gregg	township
- Hartleton	borough	Incorporated Area
- Hartley	township
- Kelly	township
- Lewis	township
- Lewisburg (County Seat)	borough	Incorporated Area
- Mifflinburg	borough	Incorporated Area
- New Berlin	borough	Incorporated Area
- Union	township
- West Buffalo	township
- White Deer	township
- Winfield	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."