Johnstown is the largest city in Cambria County, Pennsylvania, United States. The population was 18,411 as of the 2020 census. Located east of Pittsburgh, it is the principal city of the Johnstown metropolitan area, which had 133,472 residents in 2020. It is also part of the Johnstown–Somerset combined statistical area, which includes both Cambria and Somerset counties. Once a bustling industrial center, like many cities in the Rust Belt, Johnstown was severely affected by the loss of jobs in the steel industry due to globalization and the movement of American manufacturing to overseas markets.
History
thumb|U.S. Army unit in Johnstown before heading to France during World War I
thumb|Johnstown City Hall
thumb|Upper Main Street
thumb|Historic Franklin Street United Methodist Church survived all three major floods.
thumb|A steel mill plant in Downtown Johnstown
Johnstown was settled by Europeans in 1770. Its population and economy expanded from the post-Civil War period well into the 20th century, as the Industrial Revolution stimulated manufacturing, mining of iron and coal, and the rise of the steel industry. These industrial jobs attracted migrants from the South and new groups of immigrants from Eastern and Southern Europe.
The city has suffered three major floods in its history. The Johnstown Flood of May 31, 1889, occurred after the earthen South Fork Dam collapsed upstream from the city during heavy rains. At least 2,209 people died as a result of the flood and subsequent fire that raged through the debris.
Another major flood occurred in 1936. Despite a pledge by President Franklin Delano Roosevelt to make the city flood free, and despite subsequent work to do so, another major flood occurred in 1977.
Before becoming an independent town, Windber, was considered a part of the city.
The city is home to five national historic districts: the Downtown Johnstown Historic District, Cambria City Historic District, Minersville Historic District, Moxham Historic District, and Old Conemaugh Borough Historic District. Individual listings on the National Register of Historic Places are the Grand Army of the Republic Hall, Cambria Iron Company, Cambria Public Library Building, Bridge in Johnstown City, Nathan's Department Store, and Johnstown Inclined Railway.
19th century
Johnstown was formally platted as Conemaugh Old Town in 1800 by the Swiss German immigrant Joseph Johns (born Josef Schantz). The settlement was initially known as "Schantzstadt", but was soon anglicized to Johnstown. An African-American settlement was established on Laurel Hill northwest of Johnstown by the 1820s, within what is today Laurel Ridge State Park. The Laurel Hill settlement remained an important part of the Johnstown African-American community into the 20th century.
The Johnstown community incorporated as Conemaugh borough January 12, 1831, but was renamed Johnstown on April 14, 1834. From 1834 to 1854, the city was a port and key transfer point along the Pennsylvania Main Line Canal. Johnstown was at the head of the canal's western branch, with canal boats having been transported over the mountains via the Allegheny Portage Railroad and refloated here, to continue the trip by water to Pittsburgh and the Ohio Valley. Perhaps the most famous passenger who traveled via the canal to visit Johnstown briefly was Charles Dickens in 1842.
By 1854, canal transport became redundant with the completion of the Pennsylvania Railroad, which now spanned the state. With the coming of the railroads, the city's growth improved. Johnstown became a stop on the main line of the Pennsylvania Railroad and was connected with the Baltimore & Ohio. The railroads enabled large-scale development of the region's mineral wealth and access to important coastal and internal markets.
Iron, coal, and steel quickly became central to the town of Johnstown. By 1860, the Cambria Iron Company of Johnstown was the leading steel producer in the United States, outproducing steel giants in Pittsburgh and Cleveland. Through the second half of the 19th century, Johnstown made much of the nation's barbed wire. Johnstown prospered from skyrocketing demand in the western United States for barbed wire. Twenty years after its founding, the Cambria Works was a huge enterprise sprawling over in Johnstown and employing 7,000. It owned of valuable mineral lands in a region with a ready supply of iron, coal and limestone.
Floods were almost a yearly event in the valley during the 1880s. On the afternoon of May 30, 1889, following a quiet Memorial Day ceremony and a parade, it began raining in the valley. The next day water filled the streets, and rumors began that a dam holding an artificial lake in the mountains to the northeast might give way. It did, and an estimated 20 million tons of water began pouring into the winding gorge that led to Johnstown some away, collecting timber, animals and broken up houses along the way.
The widespread destruction of Johnstown occurred in about 10 minutes. What had been a thriving steel town, with homes, churches, saloons, a library, a railroad station, electric street lights, a roller rink, and two opera houses, was buried under mud and debris. Debris piled up around destroyed houses and bridges, with many fires breaking out. Out of a population of approximately 30,000 at the time, at least 2,209 people are known to have perished in the disaster. An infamous site of a major fire during the flood was the old stone Pennsylvania Railroad bridge located where the Stonycreek and Little Conemaugh rivers join to form the Conemaugh River. The bridge still stands today.
As a result of its response to the Johnstown flood of 1889, the American Red Cross became the pre-eminent emergency relief organization in the United States. Founder Clara Barton, then 67, came to Johnstown with 50 doctors and nurses and set up tent hospitals as well as temporary "hotels" for the homeless. She stayed on for five months to coordinate relief efforts.
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The mills were back in operation within a month. The Cambria Works grew, and Johnstown became more prosperous than ever. The disaster had not destroyed the community but strengthened it. Later generations would draw on lessons learned in 1889. After the successful merger of six surrounding boroughs, Johnstown became a city on April 7, 1890.
20th century
In 1923, Johnstown Mayor Joseph Cauffiel ordered the expulsion of all African Americans and Mexicans in Johnstown who had lived in Johnstown for less than seven years. The edict was in response to a deadly shootout between Robert Young, a Black man, and Johnstown police officers. African Americans had settled in the Rosedale neighborhood during the Great Migration, as Southerners moved north to industrial cities to escape violence related to Jim Crow.
Although Cauffiel's edict of expulsion was without legal force, some 500 African Americans fled the city. The Ku Klux Klan had a revival in this period in the region, and members burned 12 crosses outside Johnstown in an attempt to intimidate Rosedale's Black population. Pennsylvania Governor Gifford Pinchot intervened to prevent Cauffiel from enforcing the edict.
In the early 20th century, the population reached 67,000 people. The city's first commercial radio station, WJAC, began broadcasts in 1925. The downtown boasted at least five major department stores, including Glosser Brothers, which in the 1950s gave birth to the Gee Bee chain of department stores.
But the damage from the St Patrick's Day flood of 1936, combined with the gnawing effects of the Great Depression, left Johnstown struggling again. Seeking a permanent solution to the flooding problem, Johnstown's citizens wrote to President Franklin Roosevelt pleading for federal aid. In August 1938, the U. S. Army Corps of Engineers launched a five-year project that gouged, widened, deepened, and moved of river channel in the city, and encased the river banks in concrete and reinforced steel. In a campaign organized by the Chamber of Commerce, thousands of Johnstown's citizens wrote to friends and relatives across the country hoping to bring new business to the town.
Professional ice hockey found a home in Johnstown, starting in 1941 with the Johnstown Blue Birds for one season. It returned in 1950 with the Johnstown Jets. The Jets later hosted an exhibition game against Maurice Richard and the Montreal Canadiens on November 20, 1951. Newcomers to the town heard little about the tragic past. Johnstown proclaimed itself "flood-free", a feeling reinforced when Johnstown was virtually the only riverside city in Pennsylvania to avoid flooding as a result of Hurricane Agnes in 1972.
The immediate post-World War II years marked Johnstown's peak as a steel maker and fabricator. At its peak, steel provided Johnstowners with more than 13,000 full-time, well-paying jobs. However, increased domestic and foreign competition, coupled with Johnstown's relative distance from its primary iron ore source in the western Great Lakes, led to a steady decline in profitability. New capital investment waned. Johnstown's mountainous terrain, and the resulting poor layout for the mills' physical plant strung along of river bottom lands, compounded the problem.
New regulations ordered by the EPA in the 1970s to correct environmental problems also affected Johnstown. The aging Cambria plant (now Bethlehem Steel) needed expensive upgrades. However, with encouragement from the steel company, city leaders organized an association called Johnstown Area Regional Industries (JARI) and, within a year, raised $3 million for industrial development in the area. Bethlehem Steel, which was the major contributor to the fund, committed itself to bringing new steelmaking technologies to Johnstown because they were impressed by the city's own efforts to diversify its economy.
A 1977 flood caused extensive damage in the city. There were rumors that Bethlehem Steel might leave altogether. Again, the city won a reprieve from the company's top management, which had always regarded the Johnstown works with special affection because of its history and reputation.
Federal environmental regulations established more protections for workers and locales, increasing costs. The issues with the aging manufacturing facilities grew more significant. As steel companies began closing down plants all over the country, by 1982 it looked as if Johnstown had exhausted its appeals.
By the early 1990s, most steel production was ended in Johnstown. Some limited fabrication work continues.
21st century
In 2003, U.S. Census data showed that Johnstown was the least likely city in the United States to attract newcomers. But since then local manufacturing and service economies have more recently begun to burgeon, attracting outsiders. Gamesa Corporación Tecnológica, a Spanish wind energy company, opened its first U.S. wind turbine blade manufacturing facility near here in 2006. It closed in 2014. Several wind turbines are sited on Babcock Ridge, the "Eastern Continental Divide", along the eastern edge of Cambria and Somerset counties. Lockheed Martin relocated a facility from Greenville, South Carolina, to Johnstown in 2008. Höganäs AB, a Swedish powdered metals manufacturer, operates two plants in the region, one in the Moxham section of the city and also in nearby Hollsopple in Somerset County. Companies such as Concurrent Technologies Corporation, DRS Laurel Technologies, ITSI Biosciences, Kongsberg Defense and more throughout the region are thriving businesses.
Recent construction in the surrounding region, the downtown, and adjacent Kernville neighborhood—including a new Regional Technology Complex that will house a division of Northrop Grumman, among other tenants—signal the increasing dependence of Johnstown's economy on the U.S. government's defense budget. The high-tech defense industry is now the main non-health-care staple of the Johnstown economy, with the region pulling in well over $100M annually in federal government contracts, punctuated by one of the premier defense trade shows in the U.S., the annual Showcase for Commerce.
Johnstown remains a regional medical, educational, cultural, and communications center. As in many other locales, health care has provided a significant percentage of the employment opportunities in the city. The region is located in the middle of the "Health Belt", an area stretching from the Midwest to New England and down the East Coast where massive growth has taken place in the health care industry. Major health care centers include Memorial Medical Center and Windber Medical Center, the Laurel Highlands Neuro-Rehabilitation Center, and the John P. Murtha Neuroscience and Pain Institute, with its advances in treating wounded veterans, and the Joyce Murtha Breast Care Center's focus on early diagnosis and advanced treatment.
The University of Pittsburgh at Johnstown and Pennsylvania Highlands Community College attract thousands of students to their contiguous campuses in Richland, east of Johnstown. Cambria-Rowe Business College, located in the Moxham section of Johnstown, which offered concentrated career training and had continuously served Johnstown since 1891, closed in 2016 after loss of accreditation.
The Pasquerilla Performing Arts Center, a concert/theatrical venue at the University of Pittsburgh at Johnstown, attracts high-quality performers. The Johnstown Symphony Orchestra and the recently formed Johnstown Symphony Chamber Players provide classical music. The Johnstown Concert Ballet, centered in the Historic Cambria City District, provides classical ballet performances and training to the area. The Pasquerilla Convention Center was recently constructed downtown, adjacent to the historic Cambria County War Memorial Arena at 326 Napoleon Street. Point Stadium, a baseball park where Babe Ruth once played, was razed and rebuilt.
A zoning ordinance created an artist zone and a traditional neighborhood zone to encourage both artistic endeavors and the old-fashioned "Mom and Pop" enterprises that had difficulty thriving under the previous code. The Bottleworks Ethnic Arts Center offers many exhibitions, events, performances, and classes that celebrate the rich and diverse cultural heritage of the area.
The Johnstown Chiefs ice hockey team played for 22 seasons, the longest period a franchise of the league stayed in one city. The Chiefs were a member team of the ECHL, and played their home games in the Cambria County War Memorial Arena. The Chiefs' decision to relocate caused a flood of public interest in the sport of hockey. As many as four leagues were interested in having a team in the War Memorial. In the end the city landed a deal with another ECHL team, the Wheeling Nailers, who played parts of two seasons at the War Memorial. A full-time tenant arrived in 2012, when the Johnstown Tomahawks of the junior North American Hockey League began play.
The recently established ART WORKS in Johnstown! houses artist studios in some of the area's architecturally significant but underused industrial buildings. The ART WORKS in Johnstown project is planned as a non-profit LEED-certified green building.
The Frank & Sylvia Pasquerilla Heritage Discovery Center opened in 2001 with the permanent exhibit "America: Through Immigrant Eyes". It tells the story of immigration to the area during the Industrial Revolution, from the mid-19th century into the early 20th century.
In June 2009, the Heritage Discovery Center opened the Johnstown Children's Museum and premiered "The Mystery of Steel", a film detailing the history of steel in the region. The Bottleworks Ethnic Arts Center, ART WORKS, and the Heritage Discovery Center are all located in the historic Cambria City section of town, which also boasts a variety of eastern European ethnic churches and social halls. This neighborhood hosted the National Folk Festival for three years in the early 1990s, which expanded into the Flood City Music Festival. Johnstown also hosts the annual Thunder in the Valley motorcycle rally during the fourth week of June; the event has attracted motorcyclists from across the Northeast to the city of Johnstown since 1998. Well over 200,000 participants enjoyed the 2008 edition of Thunder in the Valley, and the event continues to grow in size.
The city and county have made significant efforts to deal with deteriorating housing, brownfields, drug problems, and other issues. Numerous people who can afford to move have left the city limits in recent decades and settled in newer housing in suburban boroughs and townships.
The Johnstown Fire Department has become a leader in developing intercommunication systems among first responders. It is now a national model for ways to avoid the communications problems which faced many first responders during the September 11, 2001 attacks.
Geography
Johnstown is located in southwestern Cambria County at (40.3260031, -78.9193066).