Allentown, Pennsylvania

 city, county seat

Allentown is a city located in Lehigh County, Pennsylvania. It is Pennsylvania's third most populous city, after Philadelphia and Pittsburgh. As of the 2000 census, the city had a total population of 106,632. It is the county seat of Lehigh County.

Located on the Lehigh River, Allentown is the largest of three adjacent cities that make up a region of eastern Pennsylvania and western New Jersey known as the Lehigh Valley, with the cities of Bethlehem and Easton nearby. Allentown is 60 miles north of Philadelphia, the sixth most populous city in the United States.The area that is today the center of Allentown was laid out as Northampton Town in 1762 by William Allen, a wealthy shipping merchant, former mayor of the city of Philadelphia and then-Chief Justice of the Province of Pennsylvania.

On March 18, 1811, the town was formally incorporated as a borough. On March 6, 1812, Lehigh County was formed from the western half of Northampton County, and Northampton Town was selected as the county seat. The town was officially renamed "Allentown" in 1838 after years of popular usage. Allentown was formally incorporated as a city on March 12, 1867. The city of Allentown hid the Liberty Bell (Statehouse Bell) from the British after General Washington's defeat at The Battle of Brandywine. With the arrival of the Lehigh Canal, Allentown became a major manufacturing center in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.Allentown is the gymnastics capital of Pennsylvania

www.allentownpa.gov/
www.helloallentown.com/History.Cfm
www.hmdb.org/marker.asp?marker=29531