Pennsylvania Trivia & Tidbits - Page 6

Looking for Pennsylvania trivia? Try our list Pennsylvania little know facts, tidbits and trivia.

One of the world’s greatest contraltos, African-American Marian Anderson (1897-1993) was born in Philadelphia. Barred from singing in Constitution Hall in Washington, D.C., because of her race, she performed at an outdoor concert at the Lincoln Memorial on Easter morning in 1939. Standing in front of the statue of Abraham Lincoln, she opened the performance before a crowd of 75,000 with America.

first appeared: 10/23/2005

The state insect of Pennsylvania is the firefly, which actually is a small beetle that gives off heatless flashes of light to attract a mate.

first appeared: 10/9/2005

Prince Gallitzin State Park in Patton (pop. 2,023) is named for the Rev. Demetrius Augustine Gallitzin, a European prince who worked as a Catholic priest in the Allegheny Mountains in the late 18th century.

first appeared: 10/9/2005

Pennsbury Manor, the 17th-century estate of William Penn, founder of the Pennsylvania colony, was rebuilt on top of its original foundations in 1939 in Morrisville (pop. 10,023). The state accepted nearly 10 acres on which the manor had stood from the Warner Co. in 1932, 250 years after Penn arrived in America.

first appeared: 9/18/2005

In May 1889, heavy rains caused the old South Fork Dam to burst, sending a wall of water into Johnstown (pop. 23,906) and claiming more than 2,200 lives. Today, the National Park Service preserves the dam’s remnants.

first appeared: 9/11/2005

Bushkill Falls, the "Niagara of Pennsylvania," is a series of eight waterfalls deep in the Pocono Mountains, just north of Bushkill (pop. 1,200). The largest drops 100 feet.

first appeared: 8/28/2005

Built in 1902, Leap-the-Dips, the world’s oldest operating roller coaster, is in Altoona’s (pop. 49,523) Lakemont Park. The recently refurbished ride was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1996.

first appeared: 8/14/2005

The Keystone State is a premier grower of chipping potatoes and leads the nation in potato chip production.

first appeared: 7/31/2005

The narrow, block-long cobblestone Elfreth’s Alley, Philadelphia’s oldest continuously occupied street, was opened between 1702 and 1704.

first appeared: 7/17/2005

In 1918, Pennsylvania horseman Samuel Riddle bought the yearling Man o’ War for $5,000. Known as "Big Red," the horse trained and grazed on fields that later became the lawn of Riddle Memorial Hospital in Media (pop. 5,533) and won 20 of 21 races in 1919 and 1920.

first appeared: 6/19/2005

The 150-acre Archbald Pothole State Park near Archbald (pop. 6,220) in northeastern Pennsylvania is named for a geologic feature that formed about 15,000 years ago. The elliptical pothole is 38 feet deep and 42 feet across at its longest point. It has a volume of 18,600 cubic feet.

first appeared: 6/5/2005

At the National Munitions Co. in Eldred (pop. 858), 1,500 workers—95 percent of them women—produced 8 million bombs, mortar shells and fuses between 1942 and 1945. The town’s World War II Museum commemorates their effort.

first appeared: 5/22/2005

Author of more than 20 books, Edward Abbey (1927-1989) was born in Indiana (pop. 14,895) and grew up in Home. He is best known for Desert Solitaire (1968), a meditation on the southeastern Utah wilderness and the effects of human encroachment, and The Monkey Wrench Gang (1975), a work of fiction about a band of environmental guerrillas who try to blow up the Glen Canyon Dam in Arizona.

first appeared: 5/8/2005

The Capital Area Greenbelt in Harrisburg, a 20-mile trail coursing around and through the city, began with the City Beautiful movement, an urban reform movement of the late-19th and early-20th centuries.

first appeared: 4/24/2005

The Slinky, a toy made of an 80-foot coil of wire, was first demonstrated at Gimbel’s Department Store in Philadelphia during the 1945 Christmas season.

first appeared: 4/10/2005

The dominant presence in the Happy Valley region, Pennsylvania State University’s 41,289-person student body is roughly the same size as the nearby town of State College (pop. 38,420).

first appeared: 3/27/2005

Opened in 1994, Pittsburgh’s Andy Warhol Museum features more than 4,000 works by one of the most influential 20th-century American artists.

first appeared: 3/13/2005

Freedom Theatre in Philadelphia was founded in 1966 to create a place for local African-American children to explore theater firsthand.

first appeared: 2/27/2005

Ernie Davis of Uniontown (pop. 12,422) and later Elmira, N.Y., was a star football player at Syracuse University. In 1961, he became the first African-American to win the Heisman Trophy. Though he faced a promising future with the Cleveland Browns, he died of leukemia in 1963 at the age of 23 before playing a single professional game.

first appeared: 2/13/2005

Pine Creek Gorge, the Grand Canyon of Pennsylvania, is in Tioga County, not Somerset County as reported in a previous edition of American Profile. Thanks to our readers for bringing the mistake to our attention.

first appeared: 1/30/2005

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