Carl E. Stotz

Williamsport, PA · est. 1996

Peter Herdic was a driving force behind Williamsport's rise as the self-proclaimed "lumber capital of the world." As a mill owner and president of the Susquehanna Boom — the great log-catching works on the river — he helped turn the city's timber wealth into the mansions of "Millionaire's Row," many of which he built. An inventor as well, he patented the "herdic," a low, rear-entry public carriage, and made his own home at No. 407.

Lock Haven, PA · est. 2024

What began as the Taylor Brothers company in 1927 became an American aviation giant after William T. Piper bought the firm and moved it to Lock Haven in 1937. At its height Piper Aircraft employed more than 2,000 people and built nearly 77,000 general-aviation planes here, including some 20,000 of the iconic yellow J-3 Cub. During World War II, thousands of Cubs were adapted into L-4 Grasshoppers that trained pilots and flew reconnaissance for the U.S. Army.

Liberty Township, PA · est. 1947

Christopher Latham Sholes was born near here in 1819 and learned the printing trade as a young man in Danville before heading west to Wisconsin at twenty. There he tinkered his way to a machine that would reshape communication and the workplace: the typewriter, for which he received his first patent in 1868. His invention put the printed word within reach of every office and eventually opened new employment to a generation of workers.

Northumberland, PA · est. 1963

From 1794 to 1804 this house on the Susquehanna was home to Joseph Priestley, the English clergyman and chemist celebrated for isolating oxygen and other gases. A political and religious radical, Priestley fled England after mobs burned his home for his sympathies with the American and French revolutions, and he rebuilt his life and laboratory in the new republic. Here in Northumberland he continued his experiments and helped seed a scientific tradition in his adopted country.