Historic Markers in Pennsylvania

Meadville, PA

In the 1830s the young town of Meadville, one of northwestern Pennsylvania's earliest settlements, raised this temple-fronted meeting house in the Greek Revival style then sweeping the nation—its columns and clean lines meant to echo the democratic ideals of ancient Athens. The roughly $3,500 cost was underwritten largely by two of the region's leading families, the Shippens and the Huidekopers, whose fortunes were tied to the settlement and land business of the frontier era. Its design is credited to George W. Cullum, a West Point–trained Army engineer who worked on the nation's coastal fortifications—among them Fort Sumter—before rising to Union general during the Civil War.

Cumberland Township, PA

Erected by act of Congress, this monument on the Gettysburg battlefield honors the Regular Army — the professional cavalry, artillery, infantry, and engineers who fought beside the volunteers of the Army of the Potomac in the Gettysburg Campaign of June and July 1863. Amid a field crowded with monuments to state volunteer regiments, it singles out the career soldiers of the United States. Their steadiness helped hold the line in the war's pivotal battle.

Pittsburgh, PA · est. 1986

In the depths of the Great Depression, organized labor was fighting to gain a foothold in America's mightiest industry. On June 17, 1936, in Pittsburgh's Grant Building, the Steel Workers Organizing Committee was formed to bring the men of the mills into one union. Under its first president, Philip Murray, the effort grew into the United Steelworkers of America, eventually representing more than a million workers across the continent.

Philadelphia, PA · est. 1992

Founded by Marcus Garvey in 1917, the Universal Negro Improvement Association grew into one of the largest Black mass movements in American history. It championed racial pride, economic self-reliance, and a vision of independent nationhood in Africa, spreading its message through newspapers and chapters across the country. Its Philadelphia presence tied the city into a global network of Black activism.

Pittsburgh, PA · est. 1979

Founded in 1787 as the Pittsburgh Academy, this school claimed the distinction of being the first institution of higher learning west of the Allegheny Mountains and north of the Ohio River. It became the Western University of Pennsylvania in 1819 and took its present name, the University of Pittsburgh, in 1908. Its founding placed a beacon of learning on what was then the edge of American settlement.

Cumberland Township, PA

This monument honors the 149th Pennsylvania Infantry, one of the regiments known as the Bucktail Brigade, who fought in the First Corps on the fields west and northwest of Gettysburg on July 1, 1863. Facing Confederate assaults near the Chambersburg Pike and the unfinished railroad cut, the brigade paid a fearful price to buy time for the rest of the Union army to reach the high ground south of town. The 'Bucktail' name came from the deer tails the men wore on their caps, a badge of their marksmanship heritage.

Gettysburg, PA

This monument marks the position of Company D of the 149th Pennsylvania Infantry, part of the Bucktail Brigade of the First Corps, during the opening day of Gettysburg on July 1, 1863. On the fields northwest of town the brigade met the advancing Confederate divisions head-on, holding as long as flesh and ammunition allowed before the Union line was forced back to Cemetery Hill. The precise placement of such markers let veterans and later visitors stand exactly where the fighting swept through.

Cumberland Township, PA

Erected by survivors in 1888, this monument honors the 150th Pennsylvania Infantry — a regiment of the Bucktail Brigade — for its stand in the First Corps on July 2 and 3, 1863, holding its position under heavy fire until the close of the battle. Among its officers, Henry Huidekoper was wounded and Colonel Langhorne Wister took command amid the desperate first-day fighting. That the veterans themselves raised the stone a quarter-century later speaks to what the ground meant to the men who survived it.

Straban Township, PA

This tablet marks the ground held on the afternoon of July 3, 1863, by the 16th Pennsylvania Cavalry during the mounted fighting east of Gettysburg. As the battle reached its final day, Union cavalry guarded the army's flanks against Confederate horsemen probing for an opening.

Cumberland Township, PA

On the fields south of Gettysburg in early July 1863, this brigade of New York infantry was fed into the fighting that decided the battle's second and third days. Its first commander, Colonel George Willard, was killed on July 2; command then passed to Colonel Eliakim Sherrill of the 126th New York, who fell the following day as Union lines held against Pickett's Charge. Their division commander, General Alexander Hays, summed up the unit's cost in a single grim line about a history 'written in blood.'

Cumberland Township, PA

A short distance from here, on June 26, 1863 — days before the great battle opened — Private George M. Sandoe of Captain Robert Bell's independent Adams County cavalry company was shot and killed as Confederate forces advanced on Gettysburg. His unit was later folded into Company B of the 21st Pennsylvania Cavalry, and Sandoe is remembered as the first Union soldier killed at Gettysburg.

Cumberland Township, PA

The 28th Pennsylvania Infantry took this position around 8 a.m. on July 2, 1863, spreading out as skirmishers and trading fire with the enemy through the day before rejoining its brigade that evening. Skirmishers fought ahead of the main line, probing the enemy and screening the army's movements — dangerous, often overlooked work. The regiment's day here formed part of the wider struggle on this side of the Gettysburg field.

Cumberland Township, PA

This battlefield marker at Gettysburg remembers a young officer of a New York infantry regiment who was killed on July 2, 1863, the ferocious second day of the fight. That afternoon the Union line was battered across the Wheatfield and the rocky ground nearby, where regiments were fed piecemeal into some of the most confused and costly combat of the three-day battle. Small stones like this one are scattered wherever a soldier or unit fell, turning the whole field into a landscape of memory.

Cumberland Township, PA

This marker records where Captain Jedediah Chapman of Company H, 27th Connecticut Volunteer Infantry, fell during the Battle of Gettysburg. The small 27th Connecticut was heavily engaged in the Wheatfield on July 2, 1863, suffering severe losses in the back-and-forth fighting there. Chapman was among the officers killed as the regiment held its ground on the second day.

Cumberland Township, PA

This monument marks where Colonel Charles Frederick Taylor, commander of the 'Bucktails' — the First Rifle Regiment of the Pennsylvania Reserve Volunteer Corps — fell on July 2, 1863, at the age of twenty-three. Erected by his comrades in 1905, it honors an officer killed leading his celebrated regiment during the Union counterattack near the Wheatfield. The Bucktails were known for the deer tails worn on their caps and their reputation as skilled riflemen.

Cumberland Township, PA

This memorial marks the spot where Colonel George H. Ward, commanding the 15th Massachusetts Volunteers, was mortally wounded on July 2, 1863, during the Battle of Gettysburg. His comrades and fellow citizens of Worcester raised the stone in tribute to his valor. Ward had already lost a leg to an earlier wound yet returned to lead his regiment into the second day's fighting.

Cumberland Township, PA

This monument honors Francis Channing Barlow (1834–1896), who commanded the First Division of the Eleventh Corps on the first day at Gettysburg, July 1, 1863, in the fighting north of town where his line was overwhelmed. A Harvard-educated lawyer who enlisted as a private in 1861, Barlow rose rapidly to major-general and became one of the Union's hard-driving young division commanders. The knoll where his division fought that first afternoon still bears his name.

Cumberland Township, PA

This monument honors Brevet Major General James S. Wadsworth, who commanded the First Division of the First Corps at Gettysburg. On July 1, 1863, his troops — including the famous Iron Brigade — were among the first Union infantry to meet the Confederate advance west of town, buying precious hours with heavy losses before falling back through Gettysburg to the high ground beyond. A wealthy New Yorker who served without pay, Wadsworth was mortally wounded in Virginia the following year.

Cumberland Township, PA

This monument honors Brevet Major General John C. Robinson, who commanded the Second Division of the First Corps at Gettysburg. On July 1, 1863, his division held the Union right north and west of town against mounting Confederate pressure, staging a stubborn defense — and a costly fighting withdrawal — that helped keep the army intact for the days ahead. A career soldier, Robinson later lost a leg in Virginia and received the Medal of Honor.

Cumberland Township, PA

Erected by the State of Connecticut on the Gettysburg battlefield, this monument honors Major General John Sedgwick, the Connecticut-born commander of the Union Army's VI Corps. Sedgwick force-marched his corps some thirty miles to reach Gettysburg in time for the battle's later days in July 1863. Beloved by his men as 'Uncle John,' he was killed the following year at Spotsylvania.

Cumberland Township, PA

Samuel Wylie Crawford was a Union general whose path to the Civil War was unusual: an Army surgeon, he was present at Fort Sumter when the war's opening shots were fired in 1861. By July 1863 he commanded the Pennsylvania Reserves at Gettysburg, and on the battle's second day he led their charge across the Wheatfield and up the slopes near Little Round Top, helping blunt the Confederate assault on the Union left. This monument stands on that ground in the fields south of Gettysburg where his division fought.

Cumberland Township, PA

This tablet marks the headquarters of the Second Division, First Corps, Army of the Potomac, under Brigadier General John C. Robinson, and lists the brigade commanders — including Gabriel Paul and Henry Baxter — who led its regiments at Gettysburg. On July 1, 1863, this division anchored the Union defense north and west of town, and several of the officers named here were wounded in the desperate fighting. The rapid succession of names on the stone hints at how heavily the leadership was thinned that day.

Cumberland Township, PA

This tablet marks the headquarters of the Eleventh Corps' First Division at Gettysburg, led by Brigadier General Francis C. Barlow until he was severely wounded, after which Brigadier General Adelbert Ames took command. On July 1, 1863, the division held the far right of the Union line on the rising ground north of town — a spot still known as Barlow's Knoll — where its brigades under Leopold von Gilsa, Ames, and Andrew L. Harris were overrun by a Confederate flanking attack. The survivors fell back through Gettysburg to Cemetery Hill.

Gettysburg, PA

This headquarters marker locates the First Brigade of the Second Division, Eleventh Corps, Army of the Potomac, commanded by Colonel Charles R. Coster at Gettysburg. Its regiments — the 134th and 154th New York and the 27th and 73rd Pennsylvania — were thrown into action on July 1, 1863, to cover the Union retreat through the town. Markers like this map the command structure of the vast army that fought here.

Cumberland Township, PA

This tablet marks the Second Brigade of the Eleventh Corps' Third Division, commanded by Colonel Wladimir Krzyzanowski, a Polish-born officer whose brigade drew together New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin regiments rich in German and immigrant volunteers. On July 1, 1863, the brigade was posted on the plain north of Gettysburg, where it met the Confederate advance before falling back through the town. The listed regiments — the 58th and 119th New York, 82nd Ohio, 75th Pennsylvania, and 26th Wisconsin — reflect the diverse, foreign-born character of the Eleventh Corps.

Gettysburg, PA

This tablet marks the headquarters of the Eleventh Corps' Third Division, led by Major General Carl Schurz, on the fields north of Gettysburg where the battle's first day unfolded on July 1, 1863. Schurz's division — with brigades under Alexander Schimmelfennig and Wladimir Krzyzanowski — was thrown into line to hold the open ground north of town against advancing Confederate forces. Heavily German-American in makeup, these troops fought hard before being driven back through Gettysburg to the safety of Cemetery Hill.

Gettysburg, PA

This tablet marks the headquarters of the entire Eleventh Corps, commanded at Gettysburg by Major General Oliver O. Howard, whose divisions under Barlow, Ames, von Steinwehr, and Schurz held the northern approaches to town on July 1, 1863. When the Union First Corps commander fell, Howard took overall command of the field and made the fateful decision to fortify Cemetery Hill. Though his corps was overwhelmed and pushed back that afternoon, the ground he chose became the anchor of the Union defense.

Cumberland Township, PA

This tablet marks the headquarters of the Union Eleventh Corps under Major General Oliver O. Howard, which held the ground north of Gettysburg on July 1, 1863. Overwhelmed by Confederate attacks that opening day, Howard's divisions — led by officers including Carl Schurz, Francis C. Barlow, Adelbert Ames, and Adolph von Steinwehr — fell back through the town to the high ground of Cemetery Hill, where they helped anchor the Union defense. Many of the corps' soldiers were German-born immigrants.

Cumberland Township, PA

This tablet marks the position of the 1st Volunteer Brigade of the Army of the Potomac's Artillery Reserve at Gettysburg. Commanded by Lieutenant Colonel Freeman McGilvery, these reserve batteries were fed into the fighting on July 2, 1863, and helped plug a dangerous gap in the Union line near the Plum Run valley. The Artillery Reserve gave Union commanders a pool of guns to rush wherever the battle grew hottest.

Cumberland Township, PA

This marker denotes the headquarters position of the 1st Regular Brigade of the Artillery Reserve at the Battle of Gettysburg. The Artillery Reserve was a pool of batteries the Army of the Potomac's commanders could rush to any threatened point on the field, and its regular-army brigade was among the best-drilled gun crews in the force. From posts like this, officers fed fresh cannon into the fighting during the three-day battle of July 1863.

Cumberland Township, PA

This tablet marks the headquarters position of the Second Brigade of the Second Division, Second Corps, Army of the Potomac, led at Gettysburg by Brigadier General Alexander S. Webb. Webb's brigade of Pennsylvania regiments held the low stone wall at 'the Angle' on Cemetery Ridge, the very point where Pickett's Charge struck and broke on July 3, 1863. The fighting here reached the fence line and became the closest thing to a Confederate breakthrough in the whole battle.

Cumberland Township, PA

This tablet marks the headquarters of the Second Brigade, First Division, Third Corps at Gettysburg, commanded by Brigadier General J. H. Hobart Ward with Colonel Hiram Berdan of the famed U.S. Sharpshooters. Its regiments — drawn from Indiana, Maine, New York, and Pennsylvania — fought in the punishing action across the Wheatfield and Devil's Den on July 2, 1863. The sharpshooters listed here were among the war's most specialized marksmen.

Cumberland Township, PA

This marker records the headquarters position of the Third Brigade of the First Division, Fifth Corps, Army of the Potomac, during the Battle of Gettysburg in July 1863. Led first by Colonel Strong Vincent and then by Colonel James C. Rice, the brigade included the 20th Maine, 16th Michigan, 44th New York, and 83rd Pennsylvania — regiments thrown onto Little Round Top to secure the Union left. It is one of the many positional tablets that map the battle's order of battle across the field.

Cumberland Township, PA

This monument marks the headquarters of the Fifth Corps, Army of the Potomac, under Major General George Sykes during the Battle of Gettysburg. It lists his division commanders — Barnes, Ayres, and Crawford — and the corps artillery under Captain Martin. The Fifth Corps was rushed to the Union left on July 2, 1863, where its regiments helped hold Little Round Top and the ground around it.

Cumberland Township, PA

This tablet marks the field position of the Reserve Brigade of the Army of the Potomac's Cavalry Corps, First Division, commanded by Brigadier General Wesley Merritt, on the southern flank at Gettysburg. Made up of regular U.S. Cavalry regiments together with the 6th Pennsylvania, the brigade pressed the Confederate right on July 3, 1863.

Cumberland Township, PA

This War Department tablet traces the First Brigade of the Union Third Cavalry Division on July 3, 1863, as it moved to strike the Confederate right and rear at the southern end of the Gettysburg field. Arriving around 1 P.M. and later supported by the Reserve Cavalry Brigade, its regiments — among them the 18th Pennsylvania, 1st Vermont, and 1st West Virginia — pressed the fighting into the late afternoon. The marker preserves the precise choreography of the day's cavalry combat.

Cumberland Township, PA

This War Department tablet records the movements of the Union Third Cavalry Division under Brigadier General Judson Kilpatrick on July 3, 1863. Ordered against the Confederate right and rear, its brigades became engaged on both flanks of the Gettysburg field, with Farnsworth's men entering the fight on the far left early that afternoon. The dry, official language preserves the day's maneuvers in the army's own words.

Philadelphia, PA · est. 2012

For three weeks in June 1864, Logan Square filled with exhibits, goods, and crowds as the U.S. Sanitary Commission's Great Central Fair raised more than a million dollars for Union soldiers and their families. The Commission had grown out of the vast, largely female volunteer effort to feed, nurse, and comfort the men at the front. On June 16, President Abraham Lincoln—making his only official public appearance in Philadelphia—stepped before the crowd to praise the work being done there.

Cumberland Township, PA

On the rocky slopes near Little Round Top, this marker remembers two Union officers cut down within moments of each other on July 2, 1863, during the second day at Gettysburg — Brigadier General Stephen H. Weed and Lieutenant Charles E. Hazlett, whose artillery and infantry helped hold the army's imperiled left flank. Weed fell mortally wounded, and Hazlett was killed as he bent over him. Their deaths came at the hinge of one of the war's most desperate defensive stands.

Pittsburgh, PA · est. 1967

In September 1914, veterans gathered at the Schenley Hotel in Pittsburgh's Oakland district to help forge the Veterans of Foreign Wars. Among the founders were men who had served overseas in Cuba, Puerto Rico, the Philippines, and China during the Spanish-American War and its aftermath—soldiers who wanted an organization to advocate for those who had fought on foreign soil. From these roots grew one of America's largest veterans' service organizations.

Schuylkill Township, PA · est. 2012

Opened in 1943 as America mobilized for total war, Valley Forge General Hospital grew into one of the nation's largest military hospitals, sprawling across more than 100 buildings and treating over 3,000 patients at a time. Its surgeons became pioneers in the era's most harrowing wounds — reconstructing shattered eyes, rebuilding burned faces, and advancing the young field of rehabilitation. Its wards received the broken bodies of three wars — World War II, Korea, and Vietnam — before the hospital closed in 1974.

New Philadelphia, PA · est. 1948

In 1836 the Valley Furnace became the first ironworks to smelt using anthracite alone, drawing on the hard coal that lay all around Schuylkill County. The method had been patented three years earlier by Dr. F.W. Geissenhainer, and it soon proved itself in continuous use at the nearby Pottsville, or Pioneer, Furnace. It was a breakthrough that married Pennsylvania's coal to its iron.

Vandergrift, PA · est. 1990

Founded in 1895 by steel executive George G. McMurtry of the Apollo Iron & Steel Company, Vandergrift was an experiment in industrial idealism: a mill town where workers could own their own homes, laid out by the landscape firm of Frederick Law Olmsted with curving streets, parks, and utilities. Muckraking historian Ida Tarbell praised it as America's 'most important industrial town,' a deliberate answer to the grim company towns of the Gilded Age.

Franklin, PA · est. 1981

Formed in 1800 and named with an Indian term for French Creek, Venango County would give the world an industry. In 1859 at nearby Drake Well, the first commercially drilled oil well struck petroleum, igniting an energy revolution that transformed daily life across the globe. Franklin and Oil City grew into cities on the fortunes that flowed from the ground.

Irwin Township, PA · est. 1987

Long before wagon roads, an Indian path threaded the wooded ridges of western Pennsylvania, linking the Forks of the Ohio at present Pittsburgh to the native town of Venango near Franklin. It was along this route that a young George Washington rode north in 1753, carrying a British ultimatum to the French at Fort Le Boeuf on the eve of a continental war. Decades later the trail was broadened for troops and then for commerce, and the crossroads at Mayes Forks grew a busy hotel and stagecoach stop where travelers changed horses and collected the mail.

Cranberry Township, PA · est. 1995

Long before roads crossed western Pennsylvania, the Venango Path was a major Indian trail linking the Forks of the Ohio—today's Pittsburgh—with the Seneca town of Venango at present-day Franklin. In December 1753 a young George Washington, guided by frontier scout Christopher Gist, traveled this route on his return from Fort LeBoeuf, carrying a message for Virginia's Governor Dinwiddie warning the French out of the Ohio Country. Decades later, in 1796, the Franklin Road—the first wagon road north from Pittsburgh—was cut along the same corridor.

East Deer Township, PA

This monument gathers the names of local men and women who served across a century of American conflicts — from World War I and World War II through Korea, Vietnam, Lebanon, Desert Storm, and the Iraq War. Rather than commemorating a single battle, it reads as a community's running honor roll, each new war adding another line. It reflects the way small towns keep faith with everyone who wore the uniform.

Hazle Township, PA

This memorial in Hazle Township honors all who served their country across the past thousand years, offered in the hope of peace for the generations who serve today. Rather than marking a single battle or war, it speaks to the long human experience of military sacrifice and the enduring wish that such service secure a lasting calm.

Punxsutawney, PA

In the borough best known for Punxsutawney Phil and Groundhog Day, this monument sets aside the whimsy to honor the men and women of Jefferson County who answered their nation's call across every American conflict. Memorials like this one rose in countless small Pennsylvania towns through the twentieth century, often placed on a courthouse lawn or town square so that daily life would pass beneath the names and deeds of local veterans. Rather than marking a single battle, it gathers the service of generations into one quiet civic tribute.

Upper Bern Township, PA

In the farm country of Upper Bern Township, this memorial honors the men and women of the Upper Bern area who served in the armed forces 'during war and peacetime.' Berks County sent its sons and daughters to every American conflict from the militia days through the modern era, and small-town monuments like this gather that service into a single place of gratitude at the community's heart.

Philadelphia, PA · est. 2005

From 1971 to 2003, Veterans Stadium loomed over South Philadelphia as the shared home of the Phillies and Eagles, a hulking multipurpose bowl that seated more than 65,000 fans. "The Vet" witnessed three World Series, two baseball All-Star Games, championship football, and seventeen storied Army-Navy games before it was demolished in 2004. For a generation of Philadelphians, it was the raucous heart of the city's sporting life.

Pittsburgh, PA · est. 1996

Irish-born and trained in Europe as a cellist, Victor Herbert brought Old World polish to the American stage. From 1898 to 1904 he led the Pittsburgh Orchestra, but his lasting fame came from the operettas that delighted turn-of-the-century audiences. Tuneful confections like "Babes in Toyland" and "Naughty Marietta" made him one of the founding fathers of American musical theater.

Mahanoy City, PA · est. 2006

A violin prodigy who once shared the stage with John Philip Sousa, Victor Schertzinger grew up in the anthracite town of Mahanoy City before finding his calling in early Hollywood. He was a pioneer of the film score, among the first to compose original music written expressly for motion pictures, and his 'One Night of Love' took Academy Awards for its score and sound in 1934. He also directed and wrote the pop standard 'Tangerine,' earning a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

Hampden Township, PA

This memorial honors the Americans who served during the Vietnam War, roughly 1955 to 1975, a long and divisive conflict in Southeast Asia. Its centerpiece is a bronze propeller from a naval vessel of the era — the kind of screw that drove destroyers, carriers, and riverine craft through open ocean and the maze of Vietnam's inland waterways. Repurposing a working piece of a warship turns cold machinery into a place of quiet remembrance, giving veterans and their families something tangible to gather around.

Cheltenham Township, PA · est. 1973

Laid out at the close of the Civil War, the village originally called Camptown rose on the grounds of Camp William Penn. From 1863 to 1865 the camp trained African American soldiers—among the largest such training stations in the North—preparing thousands of United States Colored Troops for service in the Union Army. The community that grew here carried forward the legacy of those who fought for freedom and their own citizenship.

Schuylkill Township, PA · est. 1960

Before it became hallowed ground, Valley Forge was a working village that grew up around an iron forge started in 1742. When the British marched through in 1777, they burned the forge and part of the town. That winter of 1777–78, George Washington made his headquarters in Isaac Potts' house here while the Continental Army endured its legendary encampment nearby.

Schuylkill Township, PA · est. 1960

The famous winter camp at Valley Forge takes its name from a real working community that began around an iron forge built in 1742. British troops torched the forge and part of the village in 1777. During the encampment of 1777–78, George Washington quartered in Isaac Potts' house, a surviving piece of that original settlement.

Philadelphia, PA · est. 1997

Philadelphia-born Vincent Persichetti became one of his city's most respected twentieth-century composers, producing nine symphonies alongside a vast body of instrumental and choral music. A 1939 graduate of the Curtis Institute, he shaped generations of musicians as a teacher at the Philadelphia Conservatory and, for four decades, at the Juilliard School. His work bridged accessible melody and modern technique.

Philadelphia, PA · est. 1998

Painter Violet Oakley won national acclaim for the murals she created for Pennsylvania's State Capitol, works that celebrated William Penn's ideals of justice and peace. She was also gifted in stained glass and illustration, and in 1906 she moved with two other women artists to "Cogslea," where she lived and worked until 1961. Her long career unfolded during an era when women were breaking into professional artistic circles.

Doylestown, PA · est. 2000

At just eighteen, W. Atlee Burpee founded the seed company that still bears his name, and at his nearby Fordhook Farm he turned plant breeding into a national enterprise. There he developed enduring garden staples—Golden Bantam corn, bush lima beans, and Iceberg lettuce among them—that landed in kitchen gardens across the country through his mail-order catalogs. He gave this park to Doylestown in honor of his wife, Blanche.