Pennsylvania Trivia & Tidbits - Page 8

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

Gen. George Meade’s horse, Old Baldy, was wounded 14 times during the Civil War. The horse’s stuffed head is displayed at the Civil War Library and Museum in Philadelphia.

first appeared: 7/11/2004

Steel-making and other heavy industries earned Pittsburgh its nickname as the Smoky City. Far less smoky today, the city is now a center of business and technology.

first appeared: 6/27/2004

Rothrock State Forest near State College (pop. 38,420) is named for Dr. Joseph Trimble Rothrock, Pennsylvania’s Father of Forestry.

first appeared: 6/20/2004

The Conrad Weiser Homestead in Womelsdorf (pop. 2,599) is the 18th-century home of a pivotal figure in Colonial Pennsylvania. As ambassador and interpreter to the Iroquois Nation, Weiser kept the state’s frontier peaceful for two decades.

first appeared: 6/13/2004

The nation’s first military hospital was built in 1777 in Chester Springs (pop. 7,689) as the medical facility for the Valley Forge encampment. The hospital’s ruins can still be seen today.

first appeared: 6/6/2004

In response to the government’s 1863 call for African-American men to join the Union army, Camp William Penn was established north of Philadelphia. It was the first such government-operated camp and trained nearly 11,000 recruits.

first appeared: 5/30/2004

Strasburg (pop. 4,021) is home to several train-themed attractions, including the Choo Choo Barn—Traintown, U.S.A. A 1,700-square-foot miniaturized version of Lancaster County is on display, featuring 21 trains and more than 150 animated figures.

first appeared: 5/23/2004

More than 1,400 traditional quilts, many made by area Mennonite women, are displayed at the Kutztown (pop. 5,067) Festival. Prize-winning quilts are auctioned at the end of the annual summer event.

first appeared: 5/16/2004

Camptown Races, by songwriter Stephen Foster, was inspired by the five-mile horse race that ran between Wyalusing (pop. 1,341) and Camptown, a small village within Wyalusing. Today, the competition endures as a footrace.

first appeared: 5/9/2004

The Marie Antoinette Lookout, 4.5 miles north of Wyalusing (pop. 1,341), overlooks a large expanse of land occupied by a community of French exiles during the French Revolution. Among the buildings, none of which survive, was a house purported to be for the French queen.

first appeared: 5/2/2004

The John Heinz National Wildlife Refuge, near Philadelphia, is home to the state’s largest remaining freshwater tidal marsh.

first appeared: 4/25/2004

In the mid-1940s, Philadelphia-born J. Presper Eckert co-invented ENIAC, an early computer that contained more than 17,000 vacuum tubes and weighed more than 30 tons.

first appeared: 4/18/2004

A disc phonograph record was demonstrated for the first time by inventor Emile Berliner (1851-1929) at the Franklin Institute in Philadelphia in 1888.

first appeared: 4/11/2004

The state motto is “Virtue, Liberty, and Independence.”

first appeared: 4/4/2004

Henry Harley Arnold, born in Gladwyne, was commanding general of the U.S. Army Air Force during World War II, responsible for 2.5 million men and 75,000 aircraft.

first appeared: 3/28/2004

The state flower, mountain laurel, blooms on an evergreen plant that can be highly toxic to cows and goats.

first appeared: 3/21/2004

German immigrant C.F. Martin moved to Nazareth (pop. 5,713) in 1839 and founded the company that’s been making Martin guitars ever since.

first appeared: 3/14/2004

George G. Blaisdell created the Zippo Lighter in Bradford (pop. 9,625) in 1932. It was designed to be windproof and came with a lifetime guarantee.

first appeared: 3/7/2004

Kennett Square (pop. 5,199) is known as the Mushroom Capital of the World.

first appeared: 2/29/2004

Milton Hershey was 18 when he opened his own candy shop in Philadelphia in 1876. Ten years later he founded the successful Lancaster Caramel Co. in Lancaster (pop. 55,551).

first appeared: 2/29/2004

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