Elk County
Ridgway, Elk County, Pennsylvania
Marker Inscription
Formed April 18, 1843 from parts of McKean, Clearfield and Jefferson counties. Named for the large elk herd that roamed the area. First State Game Lands established in Pennsylvania, in 1920, are here. The county seat, Ridgway, was settled in 1824.
Erected by Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission
The Story
Created in 1843 from parts of McKean, Clearfield, and Jefferson counties, Elk County was named for the great herds that once ranged its densely wooded hills. Its seat, Ridgway, dates to a settlement begun in 1824 in this rugged corner of the Pennsylvania Wilds. In 1920 the county became home to the first State Game Lands in Pennsylvania, an early milestone in American wildlife conservation.
Why it matters
The naming of the county for its vanishing elk and the birth of the state's game lands here mark an early turn in America's attitude toward protecting wild land and animals.
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Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
First State Game Lands
Jones Township, PA · est. 1950
In 1920, the Pennsylvania Game Commission used money raised entirely from hunting-license fees to buy 6,288 acres of Elk County forest — the first tract in what would become the state's vast State Game Lands system. The purchase reflected a Progressive-Era conviction that wildlife and wild country were public resources worth conserving for everyone, and that hunters themselves should foot the bill. From this single Elk County parcel grew a statewide network now covering well over a million acres.
Old State Road (Milesburg to Waterford)
DuBois, PA · est. 1955
Opened to the Allegheny River in 1804, the Old State Road was the first route to Pennsylvania's northwestern frontier, and in this section it traced the course of the older Chinklacamoose Path used by Native travelers. During the War of 1812 it carried troops under Major McClellan toward the fighting at Erie. Where the modern highway crosses here, it meets the line of that pioneering road.
Jefferson County
Brookville, PA · est. 1982
Formed in 1804 and named for the sitting president, Thomas Jefferson, this county spent its early decades administratively tethered to neighboring counties before it could stand on its own. Its wealth lay underground and in the forests: rich coal seams and vast stands of timber that fed the industrial appetite of a growing nation. Brookville, the county seat, took shape as a lumbering and mining town and was incorporated in 1834.
Cameron County
Emporium, PA · est. 1982
Cameron County was pieced together in 1860 from four neighboring counties and named for U.S. Senator Simon Cameron, the powerful Pennsylvania politician who would soon serve as Lincoln's first Secretary of War. Its seat, Emporium, took shape in the 1860s in a landscape of deep forests, and lumbering drove the early economy. Flagstone quarried in the county was later chosen for the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier at Arlington.