Historic Markers in Pennsylvania

McKees Rocks, PA

In October 1770, George Washington — then a Virginia planter and veteran surveying the Ohio Country for western lands — dined at the home of Alexander McKee near the forks of the Ohio. McKee was a frontier trader and British Indian agent whose home stood at this site in what was then contested backcountry. The marker recalls a fleeting moment when the future first president passed through this remote corner of the frontier.

Bellefonte, PA · est. 1992

The story of the Mills Brothers begins in Bellefonte, where grandfather William H. Mills, a Jubilee Singer, ran a barbershop from 1871 to 1931. His son John moved to Ohio, where four grandsons were born and formed a vocal quartet that broke through racial barriers to win a mass national audience. With John singing bass from 1936, the group performed across an astonishing half-century, from 1925 to 1981.

Monongahela, PA · est. 1948

Long before European settlers reached the Monongahela Valley, people of the Adena culture raised two burial mounds on this site some two to three thousand years ago. When nineteenth-century diggers opened them, they uncovered human remains alongside pottery, copper implements, and other artifacts left by a sophisticated ancient society. These earthworks are among the tangible traces of the Woodland-era peoples who shaped the landscape of the Ohio Valley.

Philadelphia, PA · est. 2017

On May 13, 1985, a long-simmering standoff between Philadelphia police and the Black liberation group MOVE erupted into catastrophe on Osage Avenue. Police dropped a bomb from a state helicopter onto the group's rowhouse, and the fire that followed was allowed to burn — killing eleven MOVE members, five of them children, and destroying 61 homes in the surrounding Black neighborhood. It remains one of the only times an American city bombed its own residents.

Philadelphia, PA · est. 2022

When the Palestra opened at the University of Pennsylvania in 1927, it was a marvel of engineering—one of the first steel-and-concrete arenas, and the first in the country built without sight-blocking pillars. Named for the ancient Greek wrestling school, it became the beating heart of college basketball in Philadelphia, home to Penn's teams and the storied Big 5. Generations of fans have packed its stands, earning it the nickname 'The Cathedral of College Basketball.'

Philadelphia, PA · est. 1995

Every spring since 1895, the University of Pennsylvania's Franklin Field has hosted the Penn Relays, the oldest and largest track and field relay carnival in the country. What began in the Gilded Age as a novel collegiate competition grew into a rite of passage for generations of schoolboys, college stars, and Olympians, whose races here set American and world records. The meet's unbroken run through wars and depressions made it a fixed point on the American sporting calendar.

Mount Gretna, PA · est. 2002

Opened at Mount Gretna in 1892, the Pennsylvania Chautauqua was one of more than 200 communities inspired by the movement that began in 1874 at Lake Chautauqua, New York. These summer gatherings blended lectures, arts, science, and religion in an effort to bring education to Americans of every walk of life. Built partly on land later purchased from ironmaster Robert Coleman, the grounds grew a collection of public buildings devoted to that mission.

Upper Dublin Township, PA · est. 2002

Founded in 1910 by Jane Bowne Haines and a "congress of women," this school was among the first in the nation to train women for professional careers in horticulture and agriculture. It became a seedbed for organized women's work in the field, hosting the founding of the Woman's National Farm and Garden Association in 1913. During both world wars its students taught women to grow and preserve food for the war effort before the school merged with Temple University in 1958.

Philadelphia, PA · est. 2016

This marker recalls the beginnings of slavery along the Delaware River, where enslaved Africans—first brought by Dutch and Swedish colonists—were landed on the Philadelphia waterfront as early as 1639. Even William Penn and other Quaker founders, later associated with abolition, bought and held enslaved people, and merchants profited from the trade. Despite brutal conditions, these enslaved men and women endured and did essential labor in building Pennsylvania and the young nation.

Harrisburg, PA · est. 2001

Dedicated in 1906, the Pennsylvania State Capitol was hailed by President Theodore Roosevelt as 'the handsomest building I ever saw.' Designed in an Italian Renaissance style and crowned by a dome inspired by St. Peter's in Rome, its interior is a showcase of murals, tile floors, and sculpture by leading American artists of the era. The Commonwealth Treasure designation honors it as both an artistic achievement and the working seat of Pennsylvania's government.

State College, PA · est. 1947

Chartered in 1855 as an agricultural college on land donated by James Irvin, the school welcomed its first students in 1859 to study the science of farming. In 1863 it became Pennsylvania's sole land-grant institution under the new federal Morrill Act, joining one of the earliest experiments in publicly supported higher education. Its founding mission blended "liberal and practical education" for a democratic nation.

Philadelphia, PA · est. 1954

Founded in 1752 by Benjamin Franklin and a group of his fellow citizens, the Philadelphia Contributionship was the oldest fire insurance company in America, pooling members' risk to protect their houses against loss by fire. Born of Franklin's practical genius for civic improvement, it turned mutual cooperation into a lasting institution in a city all too familiar with the threat of flames.

Philadelphia, PA · est. 1996

Chartered in 1859 as the Zoological Society of Philadelphia, this is celebrated as America's first zoo. Conceived as both a wildlife refuge and a public garden, it opened its gates to a curious nation eager to see the world's creatures up close. From the start it married recreation with a mission of conservation, research, and education that it still pursues today.

Philadelphia, PA · est. 2022

Shut out of the all-male art clubs of the late nineteenth century, a group of professional women artists founded the Plastic Club in Philadelphia in 1897 and began mounting their own exhibitions here in 1909. Its members included some of the era's most accomplished illustrators and painters, among them Emily Sartain, Violet Oakley, Jessie Willcox Smith, and Elizabeth Shippen Green. The club gave women a professional home and a public stage in a field that had long excluded them.

Upper Saucon, PA · est. 2024

In the industrial heyday of the Lehigh Valley, one of the largest single-cylinder steam engines of its age stood here, pumping torrents of water out of the Ueberroth zinc mine. Designed by the Lehigh Zinc Company's Cornish-born engineer John West and built in Philadelphia, the machine was nicknamed for President Ulysses S. Grant. From 1872 it ran for two decades, and its power and clever design drew engineers' attention from around the world.

Hampden Township, PA

In the closing years of the Revolutionary War, George Washington sought a way to recognize ordinary soldiers for extraordinary courage — a radical idea in an age when military honors were reserved for officers and aristocrats. The award he devised, a cloth badge in the shape of a heart, lay largely forgotten for a century and a half before it was revived in 1932, the bicentennial of Washington's birth, and reborn as the Purple Heart. What began as a token of merit gradually became the nation's tribute to those wounded or killed in the line of duty.

Indiana, PA · est. 2002

In June 1845, slave hunters seized a twelve-year-old fugitive named Anthony Hollingsworth and held him in an Indiana, Pennsylvania hotel. Armed townspeople surrounded the building and demanded his release, openly defying the federal laws that protected slave catchers. Judge Thomas White then freed the boy in the courthouse that once stood on this site, a striking act of local conscience against the machinery of slavery.

Saxonburg, PA · est. 1947

In 1832 the German-born engineer John A. Roebling founded the village of Saxonburg and launched the business that would make him famous, manufacturing the twisted steel wire rope that revolutionized suspension engineering. His son Washington, born here in 1837, would carry their shared vision to completion by building the Brooklyn Bridge after his father's death. From this small Butler County settlement came ideas that reshaped how Americans spanned their rivers and harbors.

East Taylor Township, PA

On September 7, 1923, amid rising racial hostility, Johnstown Mayor Joseph Cauffiel ordered every Black and Mexican resident who had lived in the area less than seven years to leave. By some accounts more than 2,000 people were driven out under threat of jail. The episode drew national attention—much of it from Black journalists and activists—prompting a state investigation and a public backlash that helped cost Cauffiel his reelection.

Philadelphia, PA · est. 1998

In 1879 seventeen-year-old Eliza Shirley, newly arrived from England, opened the first U.S. corps of the Salvation Army on Oxford Street, carrying out a mission from the movement's founder, William Booth. What began with a teenager's storefront ministry to the poor grew into one of the largest charitable organizations in the country. From this Philadelphia beginning, the Army spread its blend of evangelism and social relief nationwide.

Leechburg, PA

Founded in 1872 by William Rogers and T.J. Burchfield, the Siberian Iron Works was among the first American mills to make black plate and tin plate, breaking into a market long dominated by imports from England and Wales—and drawing skilled British workers to Leechburg in the process. Its tin went into cookware, cans, and roofing across the country and abroad. In 1874 it became the first mill in the nation to run on natural gas rather than coal, and it operated here until 1931.

Clifton Heights, PA · est. 2019

A coiled steel spring that could "walk" down stairs became one of the twentieth century's most beloved toys — and it was made right here. Richard James stumbled onto the idea in 1943, his wife Betty gave it the name Slinky, and James Industries manufactured it in Clifton Heights for decades. When Richard walked away in 1960 and left a nearly bankrupt firm to Betty, she rebuilt it into a multimillion-dollar enterprise, later earning a place in the Toy Industry Hall of Fame.

Philadelphia, PA · est. 2009

Built in 1784 on the banks of the Schuylkill by John Penn, Jr., a grandson of Pennsylvania's founder, The Solitude was an elegant retreat in the refined Adam style then fashionable in Britain. Its graceful proportions and delicate plaster ceilings made it a model for the country villas of the young republic's Federal era. Since 1874 it has stood within the grounds of the Philadelphia Zoo, its original interiors carefully preserved.

Philadelphia, PA · est. 2013

From 1918 to 1959, the South Philadelphia Hebrew Association fielded one of professional basketball's dominant teams, the SPHAs, who racked up a dozen league titles from their home court at the old Broadwood Hotel. In the 1930s the roster was entirely Jewish, a source of pride in an era when the sport was still finding its footing. Owner and coach Eddie Gottlieb went on to help found the NBA, and in later years the team barnstormed alongside the Harlem Globetrotters.

Bedford, PA · est. 1951

When the Penn family had their Manor of Bedford surveyed in 1761, they set aside these public squares as property of the town itself. It was a piece of deliberate colonial town planning on the Pennsylvania frontier, carried out by the heirs of William Penn during the proprietary era, laying out communal ground for a settlement that guarded the route across the mountains.

Sunbury, PA · est. 1929

Fort Augusta, guarding the forks of the Susquehanna at Sunbury, was first chosen as a rendezvous for the Sullivan campaign. From here Lt. Col. Adam Hubley's regiment — the one unit quartered at the fort — marched to join the offensive against the Six Nations in 1779. The old fort thus became one of several launching points feeding troops into the larger expedition.

Delaware Township, PA · est. 1929

Jacob Freeland raised a mill on this ground in 1773 and, as war reached the frontier, stockaded it in 1778 for defense. On July 28, 1779, British-allied Tories and Seneca warriors attacked and destroyed the fort, and the inscription records that 108 settlers were killed or taken prisoner. The assault came at the height of the brutal frontier fighting that Sullivan's expedition was meant to answer.

Philadelphia, PA · est. 2025

In 1868 a young immigrant domestic worker named Hester Vaughn was convicted of infanticide by an all-male jury in Philadelphia and sentenced to hang. Reformers of the Working Women's Association and the suffrage movement seized on the case, arguing that a woman tried without any women on her jury had been denied a jury of her peers. Their campaign persuaded Governor John Geary to pardon her and turned a single verdict into a national argument about justice and women's rights.

Scranton, PA · est. 1993

In 1771, Isaac Tripp became the first settler of what would become Scranton, and by about 1778 his son had begun the building that still stands as the oldest in Lackawanna County. Both men represented the region in Connecticut's Assembly—a reminder of the era when Connecticut claimed this stretch of the Susquehanna Valley. Successive generations reshaped the house in Federal and later Victorian styles, keeping it in the Tripp family until 1900.

Bethlehem, PA · est. 1931

During the Revolutionary War, Bethlehem's Moravian community turned its buildings into a sprawling military hospital where hundreds of Continental soldiers were treated and, all too often, died of wounds and disease. More than five hundred men were laid to rest on this hillside, their names largely lost to record. This crypt honors one such unknown soldier, a stand-in for the many who perished far from the battlefield in the war's grim medical camps.

Middletown Township, PA · est. 2013

Founded in 1888 by philanthropist Isaiah V. Williamson, this school set out to teach underprivileged young men a trade "free of expense," pairing hands-on instruction with a character-based curriculum. It emerged just as traditional apprenticeships were vanishing from American industry, making it a pioneering model of vocational education—and the only trade school in the nation to offer every student a full scholarship. Its campus also holds the largest surviving collection of buildings by the celebrated architect Frank Furness.

Philadelphia, PA · est. 2007

Founded in 1892 by Isaac Jones Wistar, this Philadelphia institution became the nation's first independent center devoted to biomedical research, growing out of an older anatomical museum. Within its walls scientists developed important vaccines and bred the albino 'Wistar rat,' a standardized laboratory animal that spread to research labs around the world. It marked a turning point in American science, when discovery moved from lecture halls into dedicated research institutions.

Philadelphia, PA · est. 1996

On this bank of the Schuylkill, William Hamilton turned his family estate into one of the finest landscape gardens in the young nation, filling it with exotic plants gathered from around the world and crowning it with a neoclassical mansion built in the fashionable Adamesque-Federal style. After his death the grounds took on a second life in 1840 as one of America's first great rural cemeteries, a park-like resting place for figures such as writer S. Weir Mitchell, painter Thomas Eakins, and nursing reformer Alice Fisher. Garden, mansion, and burial ground together trace a full arc of early American taste in art and nature.

York, PA · est. 2016

In 1816 members of the York community banded together to guard their town against fire and to secure a clean, dependable water supply, forming what became the York Water Company. Structured as an early public-private partnership, it grew into the nation's oldest investor-owned utility and York's oldest business, paying uninterrupted dividends to shareholders since its founding.

Philadelphia, PA · est. 2014

Between 1965 and 1971, sixty-four former students of Thomas A. Edison High School died in the Vietnam War, said to be more than from any other school in the nation. Most came from Philadelphia's working-class and poor families, communities that bore a heavy share of the war's cost. Whether they enlisted or were drafted without the deferments available to wealthier peers, these young men gave their lives.

East Brandywine Township, PA · est. 1948

Thomas Buchanan Read, born in this corner of Chester County in 1822, won fame in the 19th century as both a painter and a poet. He is best remembered for "Sheridan's Ride," a galloping verse that immortalized a Union general's dramatic dash to rally his troops during the Civil War. Read spent much of his life abroad in Europe before dying in New York and being laid to rest in Philadelphia.

Carlisle, PA · est. 1949

About 1764, Thomas Butler set up his home and gunshop on this lot, the workshop still standing behind the house. When war came, Butler and his five sons all served as officers in the Revolution, earning the family its lasting nickname, the "Fighting Butlers." Their gunmaking trade tied the household directly to the arming of a rebellion.

Philadelphia, PA · est. 2009

Thomas E. Cahill rose from a poor immigrant family and, denied a secondary education himself, resolved that others would not be. His bequest founded Roman Catholic High School for Boys, which opened in Philadelphia in 1890 as the first free Catholic high school in the United States. The school became the seed of a diocesan high-school system that spread as a model across the country.

Philadelphia, PA · est. 1996

Thomas Eakins spent his life in Philadelphia painting the people and pastimes of his city with an almost scientific devotion to anatomy and light, from rowers on the Schuylkill to the unflinching operating-theater canvas The Gross Clinic. From the row house and studios on Mount Vernon Street he built a reputation as one of America's foremost realists, even as his insistence on studying the nude body from life scandalized polite society. His portraits and sporting scenes now anchor the American realist tradition.

Upper Darby, PA · est. 2007

Thomas Garrett was born at Riverview in Delaware County and became one of the most fearless conductors on the Underground Railroad. A devout Quaker who moved to Wilmington in 1822, he funneled freedom seekers northward to family properties, working alongside Harriet Tubman and William Still. Though convicted and heavily fined under the fugitive slave laws, he never relented—by his own account aiding some 2,700 people on their journey out of slavery.

Philadelphia, PA · est. 1995

Thomas Holme came to Pennsylvania in 1682 as William Penn's Surveyor General, charged with turning Penn's ideals into a working colony. He laid out the original grid of Philadelphia, drew the city's first map in 1683, and later mapped the settled parts of the province. He served in the colony's first Assembly and Provincial Council and was buried here on his own estate alongside members of Penn's Crispin relatives.

Kane, PA · est. 1980

Thomas L. Kane was one of 19th-century America's most fascinating idealists: a Civil War general who raised and led the famed "Bucktail Regiment" of Pennsylvania riflemen, and an outspoken friend of the persecuted Mormons when few others would defend them. He founded the borough of Kane in the northern Pennsylvania wilderness and was breveted major general in 1863. He died in 1883 and lies buried at the chapel he directed to be built here in the late 1870s.

Marple Township, PA · est. 1986

The oldest part of this house, a brick section, rose before 1708 on the 300-acre plantation Thomas Massey had acquired by 1696 in the young colony of Pennsylvania. Successive generations added to it in stone, and its rooms record the slow evolution of a rural homestead from William Penn's day into the nineteenth century. Deeded to Marple Township in 1964 and restored, it survives as a rare example of early Pennsylvania architecture.

Franklin Township, PA · est. 1974

This Chester County farm was the 1734 birthplace of Thomas McKean, one of the most consequential founders few remember. A signer of the Declaration of Independence, he served simultaneously in the politics of two states and famously urged Caesar Rodney's dramatic ride to break Delaware's tie for independence. He later became Chief Justice and then Governor of Pennsylvania.

Shillington, PA · est. 1947

Thomas Mifflin was one of the most active political figures of the Revolutionary generation, serving in the Continental Congress and as a soldier before becoming Pennsylvania's first governor under the state's 1790 constitution. His country estate here, called Angelica, was his home through the turbulent 1770s and 1780s when the new nation was being forged. Today the Berks County Farm and Home occupies the ground where his estate once stood.

Cheltenham Township, PA · est. 2006

In 1795 Benjamin Rowland, Jr. founded a mill complex near here that turned out high-quality shovels and spades for a young nation. Run by the Rowland family until 1901, the works earned an international reputation and helped prove that American-made goods could compete with the finest from abroad. The surviving Rowland house is among the last 18th-century structures tied to early American hardware production.

Douglass Township, PA · est. 1982

Thomas Rutter, an ironmaster who died in 1730, built Pennsylvania's first ironworks nearby in 1716 and went on to raise Pine Forge and this mansion in the decade that followed. Remarkable for his era, he was an outspoken opponent of slavery. Generations later, in the 19th century, the house served as a stop on the Underground Railroad, sheltering freedom seekers; an academy was founded on the grounds in 1945.

Philadelphia, PA · est. 2009

Thomas Ustick Walter was among the most celebrated American architects of the nineteenth century, and he lived near here in the late 1830s. He designed the towering cast-iron dome and expanded wings of the United States Capitol and the imposing Girard College, and advised on Philadelphia's City Hall. A founder of the American Institute of Architects, he also served as its president.

Pleasant Township, PA · est. 1947

During Colonel Daniel Brodhead's 1779 expedition against the Seneca, an advance party clashed here with thirty or forty Native warriors in a brief but sharp skirmish. It was the only fighting of the entire campaign and, by the marker's reckoning, the sole Revolutionary War engagement in northwestern Pennsylvania. The rest of Brodhead's march met little resistance as it moved through the Allegheny country.

Carlisle, PA · est. 1986

When Congress moved to build a Continental force in June 1775, it authorized its very first battalion — nine companies of riflemen raised here in the Pennsylvania backcountry under Col. William Thompson of Carlisle. These frontier marksmen marched to join the siege of Boston, and the unit later became the First Pennsylvania Continental Regiment. Their muster placed Carlisle at the founding of the American army.

Reading, PA · est. 1989

In June 1775, with war just underway around Boston, the Continental Congress took a momentous step: it authorized its first troops raised directly under national authority—rifle companies drawn from the frontier. Captain George Nagel's company, filled with Berks County marksmen, mustered at Reading that July and then set off on a grueling march of roughly 350 miles to reinforce the American siege of Boston. These backwoods riflemen, prized for their accuracy, were among the first soldiers to serve the united colonies rather than a single province.

Chambersburg, PA · est. 1991

In June 1775, as war with Britain flared, Congress authorized the colonies' first battalion, and Capt. James Chambers raised a company here in what was then Cumberland County. These frontier riflemen marched roughly 450 miles to help besiege the British in Boston, among the earliest Pennsylvanians to answer the call to arms. The battalion evolved into the 1st Pennsylvania Regiment, with Chambers commanding as colonel from 1777 to 1781.

Sunbury, PA · est. 1987

In June 1775, as war with Britain began, men recruited around Sunbury joined Captain John Lowdon's Company—part of Thompson's Rifle Battalion, the first battalion Congress authorized in all the colonies. Among its riflemen was Timothy Murphy, whose extraordinary marksmanship would later make him a legend of the Revolution.

Granville Township, PA · est. 1947

Preserved here are three locks of the Juniata Division of the state-built Pennsylvania Canal, notable because three locks and their levels sat side by side—an unusual concentration on the line. Opened in the canal-building era of the 1830s, this waterway carried boats over the ridges between the Susquehanna and the west. The old stonework and the traced bed of the canal still mark the route.

Londonderry Township, PA

On March 28, 1979, a combination of equipment failures and human error at Three Mile Island's Unit 2 reactor triggered the worst commercial nuclear accident in U.S. history. Over several tense days radiation escaped, part of the reactor core melted down, and thousands of nearby residents fled their homes. The crisis gripped the nation and became a defining moment in the debate over atomic energy.

Pittsburgh, PA · est. 2007

Opened in 1970 at the point where Pittsburgh's three rivers meet, Three Rivers Stadium became the shared home of the Pirates and the Steelers during a golden run of championships that earned the city its "City of Champions" nickname. Its turf saw Roberto Clemente's 3,000th career hit in 1972 and, that same year, Franco Harris's "Immaculate Reception," one of the most famous plays in football history. The multipurpose stadium was demolished in 2001.

Pine Creek Township, PA · est. 1947

According to local tradition, settlers of the West Branch frontier gathered beneath the Tiadaghton Elm on July 4, 1776, and drew up their own resolves declaring independence — reportedly before word of the Continental Congress's action had reached them. These pioneers, governed by the self-organized "Fair Play men," lived beyond the formal reach of the colony and made their own rules. Their bold declaration became a cherished symbol of frontier self-government.

Pine Creek Township, PA · est. 1947

This marker honors the Tiadaghton Elm, where tradition holds that pioneer settlers of the Susquehanna's West Branch resolved their independence from Britain on July 4, 1776. Living on the far frontier beyond the colony's official authority, these settlers governed themselves and acted on their own convictions. The famous tree associated with the event long stood near the junction of the Susquehanna and Pine Creek.

Keating Township, PA · est. 1949

In 1879, at the height of the northwestern Pennsylvania oil boom, the Tidewater Pipe Company achieved something engineers had doubted was possible: pumping crude oil over the Allegheny Mountains through a long-distance pipeline. Beginning May 28 of that year, its line pushed oil 109 miles east to Williamsport, deliberately breaking the transport stranglehold that John D. Rockefeller's Standard Oil held through the railroads. Station No. 1 stood opposite this spot, the first pumping point in a bold experiment that proved oil could flow uphill and across a continent.

Lower Providence Township, PA · est. 1969

Timothy Matlack was a firebrand of the Revolution who helped shape Pennsylvania's new government while taking up arms for independence. He sat in the Continental Congress, served as a colonel of Philadelphia Associators at the Battle of Princeton, and helped found the Society of Free (or "Fighting") Quakers for those expelled from the pacifist Meeting for supporting the war. Long a fixture of Pennsylvania's revolutionary government, he was reinterred near this spot in 1905, decades after his death.