Erie | Great Lakes City in Pennsylvania, History (2024)

Erie, city, seat (1803) of Erie county, northwestern Pennsylvania, U.S. It lies on the southeastern shore of Lake Erie, where a 6-mile (10-km) peninsula encloses a fine natural harbour; the city is a major lake port. Named for the Erie Indians, it was the site of the Fort-Presque-Isle built on the mainland by the French in 1753. Abandoned to the British in 1759, the fort was destroyed by Indians in June 1763 during the uprising known as Pontiac’s War. The area remained a wilderness until after the American Revolution, when it was purchased by Pennsylvania from the federal government. The U.S. Fort Presque Isle was built in 1795, and at the same time the town was laid out by General Andrew Ellicott, U.S. surveyor general, and General William Irvine. Naval yards established on Presque Isle Bay built most of the fleet that was used by Oliver Hazard Perry to defeat the British at the Battle of Lake Erie (September 10, 1813). Perry’s reconstructed flagship, the U.S. Brig Niagara, is berthed at the foot of Holland Street.

Early industries largely supplied the region’s agricultural economy. Erie’s first iron foundries used bog ore from the bay swamps. Economic development increased and diversified with the opening (1844) of the Erie Extension (or Beaver-Erie) Canal and with railway construction in the 1850s. Manufactures are now well diversified and include locomotives, plastics, electrical equipment, metalworking and machinery, hospital equipment, paper, chemicals, and rubber products. Erie is Pennsylvania’s only port on the St. Lawrence Seaway and is a strategic shipping point for industrial co*ke, iron ore, steel, salt, stone, and scrap metal. It is the seat of Gannon University (1925), Mercyhurst College (1926), and the Behrend College campus of Pennsylvania State University (Penn State Erie). Presque Isle State Park on the peninsula is a popular recreation area. The city has an art museum, a historical museum and planetarium, and a zoo.

The Perry Memorial House and Dickson Tavern (c. 1815) was a station on the Underground Railroad for runaway slaves; it was restored in 1963. The Wayne Memorial Blockhouse on the grounds of the Pennsylvania Soldiers’ and Sailors’ Home is a replica of the one in which General Anthony (“Mad Anthony”) Wayne died on December 15, 1796; a flagpole marks the spot where he was buried (his remains were later removed to Radnor, near Philadelphia). Fort Le-Boeuf, the last French outpost in the French and Indian War, is 16 miles south. Inc. borough, 1805; city, 1851. Pop. (2010) 101,786; Erie Metro Area, 280,566; (2020) 94,831; Erie Metro Area, 270,876.