Tarentum Borough

The town of Tarentum was founded by Judge Henry Marie Brackenridge in 1829 when the Pennsylvania Canal was completed between Philadelphia and Pittsburgh. The canal gave birth to many towns along the route. The site at the mouth of Bull Creek was first inhabited by Shawnee Indians who established a village here in 1729. In 1734, a Frenchman, Peter Chartier, maintained a trading post here until the Shawnee moved down river in 1745. Old maps show the early site of Tarentum as "Chartier's Old Town". By 1783, The Westoreland County militia erected a log blockhouse on Bull Creek for the safety of scouts keeping track of Indian movement in the region. At the close of the American Revolution, settlement on the west bank of the Allegheny River began to multiply. Brackeridge, who owned land between Tarentum and Natrona, surveyed an area between Ross and Lock Streets and called the town "Tarentum" after an ancient Greek city-state in Italy. Thirteen years later, with a population of 300, the citizens petitioned the courts to incorporate as a borough which became effective March 7, 1842. Industrialization developed in the valley when the railroad replaced the old canal in 1866. Tarentum had a population of 4000 in the 1880's. A police force was organized in 1900. Riverview Memorial Park was dedicated to the memory of all veterans on September 6, 1926. Tarentum established the first high school in the valley in 1892 on Second Avenue. Today it is part of the Highlands School District. Transportation was the key to the town's development. First by canal, then the Pennsylvania Railroad, and at present by the Allegheny Valley Expressway and the Pennsylvania Turnpike. One hundred years after it's incorporation, Tarentum reached a population of over 9000 and was a leading mercantile center in the Valley.