| |
Beaver County, PA
|
Created on March 12, 1800 from parts of Allegheny and
Washington Counties, and named for the Beaver River. It
was attached to Allegheny County until 1803. Beaver, the
county seat, was incorporated as a borough on March 29,
1802.
 Beaver’s
many water routes gave rise to several Indian
communities, most memorably Logstown. Pennsylvania
acquired the area from Indians in the two treaties of
Fort Stanwix (1768 and 1784), known as the New Purchase
and the Last Purchase. Permanent settlement began in
1772. Fort McIntosh was important during the Revolution.
“Mad Anthony” Wayne’s Legionville was the training base
for his 1794 Fallen Timbers campaign. The many streams
favored the growth of water mills, and a canal reached
eventually to Erie. Navigational improvement of the Ohio
River progressed continually from the 1830s to 1936. The
Harmonists utopian group arrived in 1824, flourished
economically for several decades, and then lost
vitality. Quality glass and pottery making were early
industries. An oil boom took place from 1860 to 1890;
gas is still important. In the early twentieth century
“Big Steel” arrived in the form of Jones and Laughlin
Co. at Aliquippa, Crucible Steel at Midland, and the
American Bridge unit of U.S. Steel at Ambridge. This
made the population swell. Trolleys made commuting to
Pittsburgh easy by 1905. The Conway Railroad Yard became
the world’s biggest dispatching point, and the entire
Ohio Valley became one industrial park. Many innovative
manufacturers came to the area to produce items such as
seamless pipe, oil drilling gear, steel barges, auto
parts, and electric-arc steel. Westinghouse Electric
chose the county as did oil refiners Valvoline and Arco.
Deindustrialization, a national trend, was severe in the
area by the 1970s, although the Shippingport nuclear
plant and Greater Pittsburgh Airport offset the impact
of factory closings. In the period 1987 to 1992 value
added to the economy from manufacturing increased by 92
percent. Some bituminous coal is surface mined, and
one-fifth of the land is farmed. |
|
|
|
|
