97 Fun Facts About Pennsylvania

What is Pennsylvania's best-known nickname, used since 1802?

The Keystone State. At a victory rally in 1802 it was toasted as 'the keystone in the federal union', the wedge at the top of an arch that locks all the other stones in place.

Pennsylvania is named in honour of which relative of its founder, William Penn?

His father. Charles II named the colony for Admiral Sir William Penn, to whose estate the Crown owed a large debt; the founder feared people would think he had named it after himself.

William Penn first proposed naming his colony after which part of Britain?

Wales. His 'New Wales' met objections, so he offered Sylvania, Latin for woodland, and the king put 'Penn' in front of it.

A partial meltdown in 1979 at which Pennsylvania nuclear plant was America's worst commercial reactor accident?

Three Mile Island. No one was hurt, but the timing was uncanny: The China Syndrome, a thriller about a cover-up at a nuclear plant, had opened in cinemas just twelve days earlier.

Pennsylvania's southern boundary with Maryland is famous under what name?

The Mason-Dixon Line. Two English astronomers surveyed it in the 1760s to end a long and sometimes violent border quarrel, and it later became shorthand for the divide between free and slave states.

Pennsylvania has no ocean coastline, so in 1792 it bought a triangle of land to gain a port on which Great Lake?

Lake Erie. Several states had claimed the same wedge of shore; the federal government sold it to Pennsylvania, and the port city that grew there shares the lake's name.

Philadelphia's name is Greek for what?

Brotherly love. William Penn, a Quaker who had been jailed for his beliefs, chose the name, Greek for loving and brother, for a city where no one would be persecuted for religion.

Philadelphia was the largest city in the United States until which city overtook it in 1790?

New York. That same year the two cities traded places another way: the federal government left New York for Philadelphia, which stayed the national capital until 1800.

Which Philadelphia landmark was begun in 1732 as the Pennsylvania State House?

Independence Hall. The colony's legislature lent out its Assembly Room, so both the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution were debated and signed in a borrowed chamber.

The Liberty Bell was hidden under an Allentown church floor in 1777 for fear the British would do what?

Melt it down. With Philadelphia about to fall, its bells were carted away so they could not be recast as cannon, and this one spent the winter beneath Zion Reformed Church.

The University of Pennsylvania grew out of an academy proposed in 1749 by which signer of the Declaration of Independence?

Benjamin Franklin. He proposed the academy in a pamphlet and chaired its first trustees; the university's official birthday of 1740 belongs to a charity school whose building it took over.

Who became the first Pennsylvania-born US president in 1857, four years before Lincoln?

James Buchanan. The only president who never married, he had his niece Harriet Lane serve as First Lady, and retired to Wheatland, his Lancaster home, as the Union came apart.

The Battle of Gettysburg ended with the failure of which Confederate assault?

Pickett's Charge. Some 12,500 men walked across open fields into the Union guns and about half were killed, wounded or captured; where they briefly broke through is called the Confederacy's high-water mark.

Which Union general commanded the Army of the Potomac at Gettysburg?

George Meade. He had held the command for only three days, replacing Joseph Hooker on 28 June, and reached the battlefield after the first day's fighting was already over.

Lincoln gave the Gettysburg Address to dedicate what?

A cemetery, for the Union dead. Edward Everett spoke for two hours before Lincoln's 270-odd words, and wrote next day wishing he had come as near the heart of the occasion in two hours as Lincoln had in two minutes.

Pittsburgh sits where which two rivers meet to form the Ohio?

Allegheny and Monongahela. Whoever held the point where they meet controlled the way west, which is why France and Britain each built a fort on it and fought a war over it in the 1750s.

A 2006 count gave Pittsburgh 446 bridges, three more than which famous canal city?

Venice. Author Bob Regan counted 446 for his book The Bridges of Pittsburgh against the 443 claimed by Venice's tourist board, though what counts as a bridge is still argued over.

Pittsburgh's Fort Pitt was built by the British from 1759 to replace which French fort?

Fort Duquesne. The French wrecked it and fled as General John Forbes's army closed in; Forbes named the place for statesman William Pitt and, being a Scot, probably said it 'Pittsborough'.

Pittsburgh's KDKA launched in November 1920 by broadcasting what?

Election results. The launch was timed for polling day, so its listeners learned that Warren Harding had beaten James Cox before they could read it in the newspapers.

Which industrialist opened his first steel mill, the Edgar Thomson Works, near Pittsburgh in 1875?

Andrew Carnegie. The Pennsylvania Railroad was his best customer, so he made a point of naming his first steel plant after its president, J. Edgar Thomson.

Before chocolate, Milton Hershey made his first fortune in Lancaster selling which sweet?

Caramels. His fresh-milk recipe made the Lancaster Caramel Company a success, and in 1900 he sold it for $1 million to stake everything on chocolate.

Which Hershey chocolate, launched in 1907, followed Milton Hershey's 1900 milk chocolate bar?

Kisses. Every one was wrapped in foil by hand until 1921, when a machine took over and added the little paper plume that marks the real thing.

Heinz sold more than 57 products in 1896, so why did Henry Heinz pick the slogan '57 Varieties'?

He simply liked the number. Struck by a shoe advert boasting 21 styles, he wanted a figure that would stick, and said 58 or 59 did not sound as strong; 5 and 7 are also said to have been his and his wife's lucky numbers.

Before ketchup, what was the first product Henry Heinz's company sold?

Horseradish. That first firm, set up at Sharpsburg in 1869, went bankrupt in 1875; the ketchup that made the name famous came a year later, from the business he rebuilt with his brother and a cousin.

The Amish church began with a 1693 split among Swiss Anabaptists led by whom?

Jakob Ammann. He insisted that expelled members be shunned even at the dinner table, which other Swiss Anabaptists refused, and those who sided with him came to be called Amish.

The Amish set of church rules governing electricity, cars and dress is called what?

The Ordnung. Mostly unwritten, it is set district by district, so one congregation may allow what its neighbour forbids, and members reaffirm it before communion twice a year.

The language spoken by the Pennsylvania Dutch is actually a dialect of what?

German. In older English 'Dutch' covered Germans as well as Netherlanders, so the label was accurate when the settlers arrived; they call their own tongue Deitsch.

Punxsutawney Phil emerges each Groundhog Day from his burrow at what location?

Gobbler's Knob. A newspaper editor talked a band of local groundhog hunters into trekking up the hill in 1887; today a top-hatted Inner Circle runs the ceremony there before dawn.

According to tradition, what does it mean if Punxsutawney Phil sees his shadow?

Six more weeks of winter. No shadow means an early spring, and his keepers insist he is never wrong: any miss is blamed on the Inner Circle president who 'translates' his Groundhogese.

Which city on the Susquehanna River has been Pennsylvania's state capital since 1812?

Harrisburg. It grew from Harris's Ferry, a trader's river crossing set up about 1718, and has outranked far bigger Philadelphia and Pittsburgh as the seat of government ever since.

Which Pennsylvania town was devastated in 1889 when the South Fork Dam burst after days of heavy rain?

Johnstown. More than 2,200 people died when a private lake kept by a club of Pittsburgh's rich came down the valley; the club was never held legally responsible, and Clara Barton's Red Cross led the relief.

The Little League World Series is played each August at a stadium complex in which Pennsylvania borough?

South Williamsport. Little League itself began across the river in Williamsport in 1939, and the Series was played there until its present stadium opened in 1959.

Which Frank Lloyd Wright house was designed in 1935 as a weekend retreat for Pittsburgh's Kaufmann department-store family?

Fallingwater. Edgar Kaufmann expected a house looking across at his favourite waterfall; Wright set it on top instead, saying he wanted the family to live with the falls, not just to look at them.

Which pop artist was born in Pittsburgh in 1928 to working-class Rusyn immigrant parents?

Andy Warhol. He left after art school and made his name in Manhattan, yet the city he quit now has the largest museum in North America devoted to one artist, and he is buried in its suburbs.

Fred Rogers of Mister Rogers' Neighborhood was born in which Pennsylvania town?

He was an ordained Presbyterian minister and made the show at Pittsburgh's WQED from 1968 to 2001.

The Drake Well, the first commercial US oil well, was drilled in 1859 near which town?

Titusville. Edwin Drake struck oil there on 27 August 1859 at just 69.5 feet, and the news set off America's first oil rush, filling a quiet lumber valley with derricks.

Edwin Drake's 1859 Pennsylvania oil well was drilled to supply cheaper fuel for what?

Lamps. Refined into kerosene, 'rock oil' promised cheap, bright light; the car engines that would one day drink most of it were still decades away.

Which president personally led an army into western Pennsylvania to put down the Whiskey Rebellion?

George Washington. He rode out to review nearly 13,000 militiamen in person, and the tax revolt collapsed as the army drew near, its leaders fleeing into the frontier.

Which brewery, run by one family in Pottsville since 1829, is America's oldest?

Yuengling. It got through Prohibition on near beer and a family dairy, and when repeal came in 1933 it sent a truckload of 'Winner Beer' to President Roosevelt at the White House.

Which Easter candy took 27 hours to make by hand before Pennsylvania's Just Born automated it in the 1950s?

Peeps. Each marshmallow chick was once squeezed from a pastry tube; after Sam Born bought the Rodda Candy Company in 1953, his firm cut the job to six minutes.

Which guitar maker has built its acoustics in Nazareth, Pennsylvania, since 1839?

Martin. Its founder, Christian Frederick Martin, moved his workshop there from Manhattan, and in 1916 the firm devised the Dreadnought, a bigger, deeper guitar named after a British battleship.

What is the traditional Pennsylvania Dutch New Year's Day meal, eaten for luck?

Pork and sauerkraut. The pig is the lucky part: it roots forward as it feeds, so eating it on New Year's Day is said to point the year ahead in the right direction.

Which Pennsylvania town became world-famous on September 11, 2001, when United Flight 93 crashed nearby?

Shanksville. The passengers and crew voted to rush the cockpit, and the hijacked jet came down in a field about twenty minutes' flying time short of Washington, sparing the Capitol.

Which Pennsylvania company began making potato chips in Hanover in 1921?

Utz. William and Salie Utz fried their first chips in their own kitchen, about 50 pounds an hour, and sold them fresh to small grocers and markets around Baltimore.

Which pop superstar was born in West Reading, Pennsylvania, to a family that owned a Christmas tree farm?

Taylor Swift. Her childhood job on the farm was picking praying-mantis pods off the trees so the bugs would not hatch in buyers' homes; the family left for Tennessee when she was 14.

Which Pennsylvania city hosts Musikfest, billed as the nation's largest free music festival?

Bethlehem. The festival began in 1984 in a steel town, and ground once owned by the bankrupt Bethlehem Steel is now SteelStacks, a ten-acre campus for music and the arts.

William Penn won a reputation for fair dealing by paying which Native nation for the land he settled?

The Lenape. Penn insisted on buying their land by treaty rather than seizing it, but in 1737 his sons used the disputed 'Walking Purchase' to take a huge tract from them.

Which classic toy did a naval engineer invent in 1943 and first demonstrate at Gimbels in Philadelphia?

Slinky was born when Richard James saw a spring fall off a shelf and seem to walk. The first 400 sold out in 90 minutes at that Philadelphia demonstration.

Which McDonald's menu item did franchisee Jim Delligatti first sell in Uniontown, Pennsylvania, in 1967?

Big Mac sales began at 45 cents in Uniontown before going nationwide in 1968. Delligatti said he merely copied the double-decker burger sold by the rival Big Boy chain.

Which Pennsylvania city is home to the Dunder Mifflin paper company branch in the US sitcom The Office?

Scranton is real, and it shows: the opening credits use footage of the city that John Krasinski shot himself on a research trip before filming.

Which pop superstar, born in 1989, spent her childhood holiday seasons on a Christmas tree farm in Pennsylvania?

Taylor Swift left Pennsylvania at 14, when her father transferred to a Nashville office so she could chase a country music career.

Which Pennsylvania coal town emptied out because a mine fire has burned beneath its streets since 1962?

Centralia shrank from about 1,000 residents in 1980 to just five by 2020, and the Postal Service retired its ZIP code in 2002.

Which giant dog breed did Pennsylvania name its official state dog in 1965, choosing it over the beagle?

Great Dane dogs came with early settlers as hunting and working animals, which won the breed the title. Pennsylvania was the second state to pick a dog, a year after Maryland.

Which brand synonymous with the American cowboy was founded far from the frontier, in Philadelphia, in 1865?

Stetson grew into the world's largest hat maker, turning out more than 3.3 million hats a year from a nine-acre factory in Philadelphia.

Which ice cream dessert do most historians trace to a 1904 creation at a western Pennsylvania pharmacy?

Banana split creator David Strickler was a 23-year-old pharmacy student working the soda fountain, and his bananas reached Pennsylvania by way of New Orleans.

Kennett Square in Chester County, Pennsylvania, is nicknamed the world capital of which farm crop?

Mushrooms from the farms around Kennett Square top 500 million pounds a year, about half the US crop, and the town honors them with a festival every September.

Which furry orange mascot with googly eyes did the Philadelphia Flyers introduce in September 2018?

Gritty gave the Flyers a mascot at last: before his debut they and the Rangers were the only NHL teams without one, and within days he was on The Tonight Show.

Which Olympic champion gave his name to the Pennsylvania town of Mauch Chunk in 1954, despite never having visited?

Jim Thorpe never set foot there while alive: his widow struck a deal with the town, which received his remains and built a monument around his tomb.

Which convenience store chain with a goose logo is named after a community in Delaware County, Pennsylvania?

Wawa comes from an Ojibwe word for a wild goose, which explains the logo, and the community was the site of the company's first milk plant.

Which Pennsylvania city served as capital of the United States for a single day in September 1777?

Lancaster hosted the Continental Congress on September 27, 1777, as it fled the British advance on Philadelphia, and the city now marks the date as Capital Day.

Which Philadelphia upholsterer does a story first told by her grandson credit with sewing the first American flag?

Betsy Ross got the credit only in 1870, when her grandson presented the family story to a historical society, almost a century after the flag was supposedly made.

Where did the Continental Army endure the winter of 1777–78, camped about 18 miles northwest of Philadelphia?

Valley Forge saw no battle, yet an estimated 1,700 to 2,000 soldiers died of disease during the six-month encampment.

Pennsylvania, like Virginia, Kentucky and Massachusetts, uses which term instead of 'state' in its official name?

Commonwealth is purely a matter of style and carries no legal weight, though criminal charges in all four states are brought in the Commonwealth's name.

Which religious group, known for refusing to swear oaths or fight, ran Pennsylvania's early colonial government?

Quakers were persecuted in much of colonial America, but in Pennsylvania they established themselves politically and governed on their own principles.

Which Great Lake gives Pennsylvania its only lakeshore, including the sandy peninsula of Presque Isle State Park?

Lake Erie meets Pennsylvania at its northwestern corner, where Presque Isle sheltered Commodore Oliver Hazard Perry's fleet during the War of 1812.

Which snack did Julius Sturgis start baking commercially in Lititz, Pennsylvania, a first for the United States?

Pretzels sold so well at his bread bakery that Sturgis dropped everything else in 1861, and his Lititz bakery is the oldest commercial pretzel maker in the country.

Which sandwich are Pat and Harry Olivieri credited with inventing at a South Philadelphia hot dog stand?

Cheesesteak history began without cheese: the brothers first served chopped steak and onions on an Italian roll, and the cheese was added only years later.

Which Pennsylvania Dutch pie, described as a crumb cake baked in a crust, gets its sweetness from molasses?

Shoofly pie is popularly said to be named for the flies its sweet filling attracts, though food historians trace the name to a late 19th-century brand of molasses.

Which Pennsylvania Dutch breakfast loaf, also called pannhaas, is a cornmeal mush sliced and pan-fried until crusty?

Scrapple wastes nothing: hog scraps and trimmings are boiled into a broth, the bones are removed, and cornmeal and buckwheat flour are stirred in to set the loaf.

Which woodland bird, known for a wing-beating display called drumming, is Pennsylvania's state game bird?

Ruffed grouse males never strike the log they perform on: the thumping comes from their wings alone, which has earned the bird the nickname thunder-chicken.

Which flowering evergreen shrub, also called spoonwood, is the state flower of both Pennsylvania and Connecticut?

Mountain laurel earned the name spoonwood because Native Americans carved spoons from it, a bold choice given that every part of the plant is poisonous.

Which shade-loving conifer, once prized for the tannin in its bark, is the official state tree of Pennsylvania?

Eastern hemlock trees can live for centuries: the oldest on record, found at Tionesta in Pennsylvania, was at least 554 years old.

Which river, the longest on the US East Coast, crosses Pennsylvania on its way to Chesapeake Bay?

Susquehanna water supplies half of the fresh water flowing into Chesapeake Bay, yet the river carries no commercial boat traffic at all.

Which river winds through Philadelphia's Fairmount Park and past the rowing clubs of Boathouse Row?

Schuylkill comes from Dutch words for hide and stream, apparently because the mouth of the river was so well hidden.

Which peak in Somerset County, near the Maryland border, is the highest point in Pennsylvania?

Mount Davis tops out at just 3,213 feet on a ridge so gentle that visitors can drive almost to the summit, and it ranks 33rd among the states' high points.

Which mountain resort region rivaled Niagara Falls as a honeymoon destination by 1960?

The Poconos sealed that reputation in 1963, when resort owner Morris Wilkins invented the heart-shaped bathtub to lure newlyweds.

Which type of coal is mined in the United States only in northeastern Pennsylvania's Coal Region?

Anthracite was discovered there in 1762, and the reserve is put at seven billion short tons; visitors can tour former underground mines in several towns.

Which University of Pittsburgh researcher was hailed as a miracle worker when his polio vaccine succeeded in 1955?

Jonas Salk chose not to patent the vaccine or seek any profit from it, so that it could be distributed as widely as possible.

Which pioneering computer, dubbed a Giant Brain by the press, was dedicated in Philadelphia in February 1946?

ENIAC was built to calculate artillery firing tables for the US Army, and its six primary programmers were all women.

Which Pennsylvania city is home to the Crayola Experience, a short drive from the crayon maker's headquarters?

Easton hosts the attraction alongside the National Canal Museum, while the crayon maker itself is based in a neighboring township.

Which northern Pennsylvania city has been home to Zippo lighters since the company was founded in 1932?

Bradford gave the world the Zippo because founder George Blaisdell liked the sound of the word zipper and thought zippo sounded more modern.

Which US president was born in northeastern Pennsylvania in 1942 and moved to Delaware as a boy?

Joe Biden was ten when his family left Pennsylvania in 1953, and he went on to represent Delaware in the US Senate from 1973 to 2009.

Which Philadelphia-born Oscar winner retired from acting at 26 to become Princess of Monaco?

Grace Kelly came from sporting royalty before the real kind: her father, John B. Kelly, won three Olympic gold medals for sculling.

Which Hollywood star, raised in West Philadelphia, first found fame as a rapper alongside DJ Jazzy Jeff?

Will Smith and Jeffrey Townes, the duo's DJ, won the first Grammy ever awarded for Best Rap Performance, in 1989.

Which star of It's a Wonderful Life was born and raised in the small town of Indiana, Pennsylvania?

James Stewart gave his Best Actor Oscar to his father, who put it on display in the family hardware store back in Indiana.

Which reporter, first hired by the Pittsburgh Dispatch, circled the globe faster than Jules Verne's Phileas Fogg?

Nellie Bly was the pen name of Elizabeth Cochran, born in Cochran's Mills, a Pennsylvania village named after her father; she also went undercover inside an asylum.

Which Pittsburgh industrialist invented the railway air brake and championed alternating current against Thomas Edison?

George Westinghouse later received the Edison Medal, of all honors, for his part in developing the alternating current system his rival had fought.

Which Pennsylvania community, named after an 18th-century inn, is best known for its enormous shopping mall?

King of Prussia took its name from an inn whose sign showed Frederick the Great, where settlers heading west to Ohio would spend their first night on the road.

Which railroad landmark near Altoona, completed in 1854, was kept under armed guard during World War II?

Horseshoe Curve was on the target list of Operation Pastorius, a Nazi sabotage plot that collapsed when one of the agents turned himself in to the FBI.

Which Philadelphia prison, opened in 1829 with a wagon-wheel layout, later held Al Capone and Willie Sutton?

Eastern State Penitentiary kept its inmates in strict isolation, and its radial floor plan became the model for more than 300 prisons around the world.

Which costumed performers parade through Philadelphia each New Year's Day as comics, fancies and string bands?

Mummers held their first official parade on January 1, 1901, taming a rowdy street tradition of disguised revelers who fired guns and demanded free drinks.

The lion mascot of Penn State's sports teams takes its name from which mountain overlooking the university?

Mount Nittany was home to eastern mountain lions until the 1880s, and a student invented the mascot on the spot in 1904 to outdo Princeton's tiger.

Which railroad, named for a Berks County city in Pennsylvania, became a property on the original Monopoly board?

Reading served as a railroad name for more than a century, until the company's rail operations were spun off and merged into Conrail in 1976.

Which painted barn decorations, often stars in circles, are a folk art of the Pennsylvania Dutch Country?

Hex signs spread only once ready-mixed paint became affordable, because before the 1830s most barns were not painted at all.

Which landmark in Tioga State Forest, up to 1,450 feet deep, is nicknamed the Grand Canyon of Pennsylvania?

Pine Creek Gorge runs for 47 miles, and the National Park Service calls it one of the finest examples of a deep gorge in the eastern United States.

Which French fort at the head of the Ohio River fell to a British expedition in 1758, where Pittsburgh now stands?

Fort Duquesne was never stormed: the outnumbered French destroyed and abandoned it before the main British force arrived, two months after beating back a smaller attack.

Which amusement park near Pittsburgh opened in 1898 as a trolley park at the end of a streetcar line?

Kennywood is one of just two amusement parks in the United States designated a National Historic Landmark; the other is Rye Playland.