Meadville, settled by David Mead in 1788, was established 100 miles from Pittsburgh and Buffalo in the French Creek Valley of northwest Pennsylvania. The city's population grew from 500 in 1810 to more than 10,000 at the end of the 20th century. The construction of residential, institutional, commercial, and industrial buildings burgeoned, and the diverse cultural heritage of the residents dictated a wide variety of architecture. Meadville's Architectural Heritage captures how the citizens of Meadville have retained portions of the grand architecture and have continued efforts to find new uses and functions for many historic buildings.

What stories do we tell about America’s once-great industries at a time when they are fading from the landscape? Pennsylvania in Public Memory attempts to answer that question, exploring the emergence of a heritage culture of industry and its loss through the lens of its most representative industrial state. Based on news coverage, interviews, and more than two hundred heritage sites, this book traces the narrative themes that shape modern public memory of coal, steel, railroading, lumber, oil, and agriculture, and that collectively tell a story about national as well as local identity in a changing social and economic world.