Beaver Falls’s history is
mostly unwritten
The public archives hold only 4 old photos of Beaver Falls. The rest are in attics, shoeboxes and the historical society. Help start the collection.
The story
from WikipediaRead it all ↗The area of present-day Beaver Falls was first mentioned in 1770 in the journals of David Zeisberger, a Moravian Church missionary who eventually settled in present-day Lawrence County. A Lenape chief named Pakanke took Zeisberger to the valley surrounding the Beaver River, where the Lenape owned a large tract of open land which Zeisberger was given access to. In April 1770, Zeisberger and his followers set out in 16 canoes down the Allegheny and Ohio rivers, reaching the mouth of the Beaver three days later. They made their way up to what was called the “Falls of the Beaver," where they encamped. The town originally formed around the middle falls area was named Brighton after Brighton, England, which was the hometown of the area's surveyors.
Text from Wikipedia, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0.
Timeline
built from the dates on the items belowStart Beaver Falls’s collection
The first neighbors to add old photos shape how Beaver Falls’s history is told.
1 of 10 decades since 1900 have photos 🔁Retake an old viewView of the Falls and City, 1905: stand where they stood+15 📦Share a family photoSign in to add one+10Famous people from Beaver Falls
See all 30 →
Beaver Falls, decade by decade
1990s
Then & now
No then-and-now pairs yet. Take a photo from the same spot as View of the Falls and City (1905) and it appears here side by side.
🔁 Retake this view · +15Historic places
National Register · via Wikidata
From the Library of Congress (4) and the National Register (1). Images are copied here with their credits and licenses, shown on each photo’s page. Refreshed monthly.