| |
Fayette County, PA
|
Created on September 26, 1783, from part of Westmoreland
County and named in honor of the Marquis de la Fayette.
In 1825 Lafayette visited the county as Albert
Gallatin’s guest and addressed the public in
Brownsville. Uniontown, the county seat, was laid out
about 1776 as Beason’s-town and later renamed in
allusion to the Federal Union. It was incorporated as a
borough on April 4, 1796 and as a city on December 19,
1913.
 Wendell
Brown and Christopher Gist settled in the area around
1752. Washington’s Fort Necessity campaign occurred in
1754, and Braddock’s army passed through the next year.
Indian raids continued until 1783. Brownsville developed
from a military post, Fort Burd. From 1818 to 1852 the
National or Cumberland Road brought prosperity, ending
when the Pennsylvania Railroad connected with Pittsburgh
and bypassed Fayette. The first iron furnace was fired
in 1789. Brownsville was an early boat building center,
and the glass industry originally flourished in the
county. The coke industry began with the first beehive
oven in 1841. Connellsville coking coal had superior
chemical qualities. Henry Clay Frick’s fortune began
with coke in 1870. By the 1920s, beehive ovens were
obsolete and much of the coke manufacturing moved to the
sites of the steel mills, but beehives were revived in
World War II. By 1950 the coal under the county was
gone, and severe unemployment and depression began.
Farms cover 23 percent of the county’s land today.
Bituminous coal, mined entirely by surface operations,
is still produced. |
|
|
|
|
