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Clarion County, PA
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Created on March 11, 1839 from parts of Venango and
Armstrong Counties and named for the Clarion River.
Clarion, the county seat, was incorporated as a borough
on April 6, 1841.
 Formed
on land acquired from Indians by the Treaty of Fort
Stanwix in 1784, it was first owned by the Holland,
Pickering, and Bingham land development companies.
Settlement began in 1797, and a lumber industry sprang
up which relied on floating logs down the Clarion River
to the Allegheny. Boat building developed and lumber was
also used for making charcoal—needed for a local iron
industry—but the lumber based economy played out by 1900
because the trees were not replaced. Cook Forest State
Park is the home of the only significant stand of
primeval trees in the state. An oil boom lasted from
1869 to 1879; bituminous coal mining began in 1877.
Surface strip bituminous coal mining has been in
operation since 1920. Having both fire clay and natural
gas, a pottery industry flourished in the nineteenth
century. The Philadelphia and Erie Railroad was built
through the county in the 1870s. The 40,000 population
of 1880 was not equaled again until the 1980 census.
There is a farming tradition; in total receipts from
farm products Clarion ranks about 44th among the 67
counties. Farms occupy 31 percent of the land. There
were Underground Railroad stations at Clarion,
Rimersburg, and Shippensville. |
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