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Cambria County, PA
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Created on March 26, 1804, from parts of Huntingdon,
Somerset, and Bedford Counties and named for Cambria
Township of Somerset County. Cambria is an ancient name
for Wales. It was attached to Somerset County until
1807. Ebensburg, the county seat was incorporated as a
borough on January 15, 1825 and named by Reverend Rees
Lloyd for his deceased eldest son, Eben.
 First
permanent settlement was on the site of Loretto in 1788,
and population growth was very slow until the 1830s.
Then came the beginnings of coal mining (1825), the
Allegheny Portage Railroad (1834), iron production
(1841), and the Pennsylvania Railroad (1854). Always a
large bituminous producer—today about seventh in the
state—the county’s iron ore was once also worth mining.
Cambria Iron Works were formed in 1852 and bought out by
Bethlehem Steel in 1922. The area witnessed pioneer
projects in the Bessemer method and the open-hearth
steel making processes, and in rolling steel rails.
Disasters recurred: the Johnstown floods of 1889 and
1936, and mine disasters in 1902 (Johnstown), 1922
(Spangler), and 1940 (Portage). Labor unions made little
progress in Cambria until the passage of the federal
Wagner Act in 1937. Because it was so strongly committed
to heavy industry, deindustrialization has been
pronounced in Cambria since the 1970s. Welsh, Irish, and
German groups were among the pre-industrial population,
and the Russian prince-priest Demetrius Gallitzin
ministered at Loretto from 1799 to 1829. Industrial
employment resulted in the appearance of a medley of
European ethnic groups. |
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