Old State Line
Springfield Township, Erie County, Pennsylvania
Marker Inscription
The northern boundary of Pennsylvania, before the purchase of the Erie Triangle in 1792, crossed the highway at this point. The state paid $151,640.25 for the Erie tract and its port on the Lakes.
Erected by Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission
The Story
Before 1792 this was the literal edge of Pennsylvania, its northern line running across the road at this point. The state then bought the Erie Triangle for more than $151,000, gaining both the tract and the Lake Erie port that came with it. What had been a boundary became the middle of a growing commonwealth.
Why it matters
The Erie Triangle purchase gave Pennsylvania its lone outlet to the Great Lakes, a strategic gain that shaped generations of trade and settlement.
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Related events
- · Purchase of the Erie Triangle, 1792
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Old State Line
Girard, PA · est. 1946
Here the highway crosses what was once the top of Pennsylvania, the northern boundary that stood before the state reached Lake Erie. In 1792 Pennsylvania purchased the Erie Triangle for over $151,000, extending its territory to the lakeshore and its all-important harbor. The transaction turned a landlocked corner into a gateway.
Old State Line
McKean, PA · est. 1946
Before 1792, Pennsylvania's northern edge ran right across this ground, and the land above it belonged to no state's settled claim. That year Pennsylvania bought the wedge known as the Erie Triangle, paying just over $151,000 to gain a genuine harbor on the Great Lakes. Without that purchase, the state would have been boxed out of Lake Erie entirely.
Old State Line
Waterford Township, PA · est. 1946
This spot once sat on Pennsylvania's original northern boundary, the line that hemmed the state in before 1792. In that year the commonwealth paid more than $151,000 for the Erie Triangle, buying itself a foothold and a port on Lake Erie. The old line, long erased from maps, still crossed the highway here within living memory of the marker's makers.
Old State Line Historical Marker
Wattsburg, PA
In the young republic's first decades, Pennsylvania's northern line ran right across this road—until 1792, when the state secured the wedge of land known as the Erie Triangle. That purchase, for which Pennsylvania paid the federal government the oddly precise sum of $151,640.25, gave the commonwealth something no other arrangement could: its own frontage on Lake Erie and a deep-water port at Presque Isle. This unassuming spot near Wattsburg marks where the old boundary once lay, before the map was redrawn to reach the Great Lakes.