Beaver County Pennsylvania

County Government offices are located at 810 Third Street, Beaver PA 15009; phone: 724-728-5700.

Beginnings [1]

Created on March 12, 1800 from parts of Allegheny and Washington Counties, and named for the Beaver River. It was attached to Allegheny County until 1803. Beaver, the county seat, was incorporated as a borough on March 29, 1802.

Named for one of our most industrious little animals; was in the track of earliest of French and English explorers of the Mississippi Valley, to which the Ohio River Valley forms an integral part. It was the scene of heroic labors of Moravian and Jesuit missionaries, who built their stations on the borders of the Beaver River. The Indian villages were the homes of some of the most noted warriors of the aboriginal tribes, and sites of important treaty conferences between them and the colonial governments of Pennsylvania and Virginia. Chief industries are coal and steel. Yards of the Pennsylvania Railroad at Conway, said to be the largest in the world; the famous glass factories of Rochester and Monaca, are at junction of the Ohio and Beaver rivers. Four bridges are here, including that of the Pittsburgh and Lake Erie Railroad, a massive structure of fine engineering skill, 90 feet above the river.

1. Archambault, A. Margaretta, ed., A Guide Book of Art, Architecture, and Historic Interests in Pennsylvania, John C. Winston Company, Philadelphia, 1924