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Westmoreland County, Pennsylvania - Greensburg Campus

This guide will assist students in various courses who need information regarding the history, demographics, and local resources of Westmoreland County, Pennsylvania or if you are enrolled in History 1005, Special Topics.

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Facts About Westmoreland County

  • "Westmoreland County, Pennsylvania, was named for Westmoreland county, England...."Mother" Westmoreland, cut from Bedford county, is one of the nine counties of Pennsylvania named for English shires...the nickname 'Star of the West' was attached to Westmoreland county by eastern politicians because of the Democratic party majorities over the Whigs each election in the 1840s." -- A Short History of Westmoreland County, by C.M. Bomberger.
  • Westmoreland County was formed by an Act of Assembly by Governor Richard Penn on February 26, 1773 from Bedford County. Originally the county seat was at Hanna's Town (the site of the first English court west of the Allegheny Mountains) but moved to Greensburg in 1785. The first log courthouse stood in the same location as the current courthouse on Main Street in the city of Greensburg. The present courthouse was dedicated on January 31, 1908.
  • On December 9, 1965 residents of Kecksburg, PA reported that a UFO crashed near their small rural community. The local newspaper, the Greensburg Tribune-Review, ran the following headline on Dec. 10: "Unidentified Flying Object Falls near Kecksburg-Army Ropes Off Area." (This newspaper headline is available on microfilm at Millstein Library on the Greensburg campus.)
  • Latrobe, PA is the birthplace of the banana split, created by David Strickler in 1904. (Atlas Obscura article)