Quintessential Pennsylvania

Eastern Washington County is home to many covered bridges, including the Leatherman Covered Bridge near Scenery Hill.  The 36-foot-long Queen post bridge is believed to have been built after 1860.  The structure crosses the South Branch of Pigeon Creek and is said to be named after Joseph Letherman.  Letherman, whose last name's spelling is different from the bridge, was one of the early doctors in the area. The bridge was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1979 and was fully restored in 1998. Further Reading: Leatherman Covered Bridge @ Coveredbridges.net Leatherman Covered Bridge ---Washington County Tourism Promotion Agency Leatherman Covered Bridge ---Wayne Chatfield How To Get There:

ELLSWORTH - Founded in 1900.  Washington County town named for and founded by James W. Ellsworth.  In 2025, the town celebrated its 125th anniversary . How To Get There:

Monessen, "The City on the Hill."  The Westmoreland County town that was founded and grew from industry.  The city that symbolizes the tragedy of the Rust Belt. It's hard to find the best way to write about Monessen.  The Monongahela Valley town is a living example of how the decline of the steel industry decimated a community.  Yet, through all the blight and lost businesses of what was once a city of over 20,000 residents, there's still some hope, even if it's tinged with nostalgia. An abandoned parking deck from a time when Downtown Monessen was a destination. The parking deck was still in use as late as 2016. Monessen hasn't been the same since the early 1970s when Page Steel and Wire closed shop.  The biggest blow came when Wheeling-Pittsburgh Steel left town in the mid-1980s.  The loss of the city's major employers put Monessen in a tailspin from which it has never recovered. The former First National Bank and Trust Company building (and former home ...

  While the number of historic iron truss and metal truss bridges has been dwindling over the years due to several factors, occasionally a bridge will be preserved for its historical value. Such is the case of the Inwood Iron Bridge, which was built in 1899 and located near Lickdale, Pennsylvania. The Inwood Iron Bridge was fabricated by the Pittsburgh Bridge Company and erected by Nelson and Buchanan of Chambersburg, Pennsylvania. It is historically significant as one of the oldest surviving Pennsylvania thru truss highway bridges in Pennsylvania. Early examples of Pennsylvania (Petit) thru-truss highway bridges from before the 20th Century were not common as the design was more often used for railroad bridges. Only a handful of such roadway bridges have been identified around Pennsylvania, making the Inwood Iron Bridge more historically significant. The 151-foot-long Inwood Iron Bridge crossed Swatara Creek and was located not far from Swatara State Park in Lebanon County, Pennsy...

  QUARRYVILLE - Founded 1791. Named for noted quarries located here. Abram Barr is said to be the first to take limestone from the area in 1820 and the settlement of what is today Quarryville was due largely to the development of limestone quarries. By 1858, over 600,000 bushels of limestone were hauled from more than 12 quarries in the area, which employed over 100 people. Johnny Weir , a figure skater who competed for the United States Olympic teams in 2006 and 2010, grew up in Quarryville. How to Get There: Sources and Links: Quarryville Borough - Brief History of Quarryville

    A canal linking Philadelphia with the Susquehanna River across southern Pennsylvania had been in the making for quite some time. This eventually gave birth to the Union Canal, which was built between Middletown, located along the Susquehanna River near Harrisburg, with Reading on the Schuylkill River, which winds its way to Philadelphia. During the canal's construction, several land features had to be dealt with, and in the case of Lebanon, Pennsylvania, it was more practical to build a tunnel through a hill than to build a series of locks. This gave birth to the Union Canal Tunnel. The Union Canal Tunnel was a critical link connecting the eastern and western branches of the 82-mile Union Canal, which was built through the ridge dividing the Quittapahilla Creek and Clark's Run just northwest of the center city of Lebanon, Pennsylvania. It is the oldest existing tunnel in the United States, dug through 729 feet of slate rock which contained veins of limestone. Drilling for ...