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e-RD | Resources | 50 States | Pennsylvania | Counties |

Washington County, Pennsylvania

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

 

County Seat: Washington
Year Organized: 1781
Square Miles: 857		 Court House:

100 West Beau Street, Courthouse Square
County Courthouse
Washington, PA 15301-4432
Etymology - Origin of County Name

named in honor of George Washington.

 

Demographics:

County QuickFacts: Census Bureau Quick Facts

History

Created on March 28, 1781 from part of Westmoreland County and named in honor of George Washington. Washington, the county seat, was laid out in 1781, incorporated as a borough on February 12, 1810, and chartered as a city in 1924.

Indian ownership was yielded to Pennsylvania by the "New Purchase" deed at Ft. Stanwix in 1768, but Virginia claimed southwestern Pennsylvania (all the way to Pittsburgh) until she yielded the argument in 1780. Scots-Irish led by three Presbyterian clergy, founded Buffalo, Amity, and Canonsburg, about 1775. One, the Rev. John McMillan, became a strong political leader. Indian raids lasted until the 1790s. This was a center of the Whiskey Rebellion (1794), of which David Bradford was the leader, but after that distilling declined. In time, sheep created prosperity, increasingly so with the spread of the efficient Merino breed between 1820 and 1840. The National Road led to the founding of Centerville, Claysville, and Beallsville, but the arrival of the Pennsylvania Railroad in Pittsburgh, in 1852, eclipsed the prosperity that the National Road's wagon route had stimulated. The opening of US Route 40 early in the twentieth century benefited Washington. Small railroads entered the county in the 1850s; coal mining grew after 1865 and the county is still one of the major coal producers. Natural gas was harnessed for sale in 1884, the same year oil was struck. Small steel mills began around 1900, and a glass industry flourished from the 1880s to the 1950s. Steel processing, steel products, and other metal products are strong businesses in the county. Today, Washington rivals Greene as top producing county for sheep and wool. Forty percent of the land is farmed, and the county is a significant producer of apples, cattle, and alfalfa and forage crops.
 

 

Neighboring Counties:
  • Insert Counties Here
Cities and Towns:
- Allenport borough Incorporated Area
- Amity township  
- Amwell township  
- Beallsville borough Incorporated Area
- Bentleyville borough Incorporated Area
- Blaine township  
- Buffalo township  
- Burgettstown borough Incorporated Area
- California borough Incorporated Area
- Canonsburg borough Incorporated Area
- Carroll township  
- Cecil township  
- Charleroi borough Incorporated Area
- Chartiers township  
- Claysville borough Incorporated Area
- Coal Center borough Incorporated Area
- Cokeburg borough Incorporated Area
- Cross Creek township  
- Daisytown borough Incorporated Area
- Deemston borough Incorporated Area
- Donora borough Incorporated Area
- Dunlevy borough Incorporated Area
- East Bethlehem township  
- East Finley township  
- East Washington borough Incorporated Area
- Elco borough Incorporated Area
- Ellsworth borough Incorporated Area
- Fallowfield township  
- Finleyville borough Incorporated Area
- Green Hills borough Incorporated Area
- Hickory township  
- Houston borough Incorporated Area
- Lawrence township  
- Long Branch borough Incorporated Area
- Marianna borough Incorporated Area
- McDonald borough Incorporated Area
- Midway borough Incorporated Area
- Monongahela city Incorporated Area
- New Eagle borough Incorporated Area
- North Bethlehem township  
- North Charleroi borough Incorporated Area
- North Franklin township  
- North Strabane township  
- Roscoe borough Incorporated Area
- Smith township  
- South Franklin township  
- South Strabane township  
- Speers borough Incorporated Area
- Stockdale borough Incorporated Area
- Twilight borough Incorporated Area
- Union township  
- Washington (County Seat) city Incorporated Area
- West Alexander borough Incorporated Area
- West Bethlehem township  
- West Finley township  
- West Middletown borough Incorporated Area
- West Pike Run township
County Resources:

Enter County Resources and Information Here
 

  

 

County Resource Guide

Counties: US Map

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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