Fayette County, located among the rolling hills in the southwest corner of Pennsylvania, offers a lifestyle that combines a superb and serene landscape of mountains, rivers, and valleys - with easy access to major metropolitan areas. Strategically located near some of the major commerce centers in the east, Fayette County is quietly but steadily developing a diverse economy to serve its residents and businesses well into the future.
Geography and landscape have played a major role in shaping the area. The majestic Allegheny Mountains, part of the Appalachian chain, comprise nearly a third of the County’s 790 acres. The ridges’ westward slopes end in rolling, fertile valleys. The waters and tributaries of the Youghiogheny and Monongahela Rivers define the landscape, and provide natural routes to the west and south. These resources of forest, land, and water attracted settlement from the very earliest of times. Native tribes hunted and traveled the mountains and valleys. Pre-colonial pioneers came to trade, and found a new land of great promise. First colonists and then newly independent American citizens arrived to carve out farms and villages. With fertile land, transportation resources, and its strategic location, Fayette and southwestern Pennsylvania became a crossroads of business and commerce, and then an industrial powerhouse, as its coal and mineral resources were developed. Today, that legacy still stands.
The county’s geographic location and stunning natural beauty - in combination with its access to mid-Atlantic metropolitan markets and the urban communities of western Pennsylvania, West Virginia, and Maryland - create an ideal place to live and work. The region (known as Pennsylvania’s Laurel Highlands) is located within a 500-mile radius of over one-half of the population of the United States and Canada, and has access to all major metropolitan resources and amenities. But the lifestyle is still a peaceful one, a place to live comfortably and raise a family, a place to find a quality of life that sometimes seems to have vanished from our more urbanized areas.
Our gently rolling foothills and valleys provide, as they have for centuries, prime commercial, agricultural, and residential land and resources. Our forests, gamelands, parks, and mountains provide, as they have for centuries, some of the best four-season outdoor recreation anywhere in the eastern United States. Our long history and diverse ethnic heritage provide endlessly fascinating stories to uncover and treasure. Fayette County is a unique and wonderful place because of its geography and history, its people and businesses, and above all, its determination to build for the future. We invite you to explore our communities, first in this book through words and pictures, and then in person. We feel sure you’ll want to visit, and once you’re here, you may come to stay. We hope you do.