Pennsylvania Facts

There is a town in Pennsylvania named Intercourse.

The highest point in Pennsylvania is lower than the lowest point in Colorado!

The state of Wyoming is named after a valley in Pennsylvania.

In 2013 Christian Bucks, a second-grader at Roundtown Elementary in York, Pennsylvania, saw a picture of a bench at a school in Germany. A child who felt lonely at recess could sit on it, and another kid would come ask them to play. He asked his principal for one, and the school put it in. Today kids in all 50 states sit on buddy benches when they need a friend.

For America's 200th birthday, all 50 states sent a covered wagon on a year-long ride across the pioneer trails in reverse, west to east. The wagon train pilgrimage covered 17,000 miles and stopped at 249 encampments before nearly 300 wagons and 5,000 riders rolled into Valley Forge together. President Ford met them there and signed the law making Valley Forge a National Historical Park.

Highlights for Children magazine nearly died by 1950, four years after two Pennsylvania educators started it. Their 28-year-old son took a leave from engineering to seed copies into doctors' and dentists' waiting rooms nationwide. Subscriptions exploded. Eighty years on, the print magazine has never run an ad, and every letter a kid mails still gets a reply.

Washington Crossing the Delaware is the 1851 painting almost every American studied in school. It shows Washington's gamble on Christmas night, 1776, crossing an icy river to attack Trenton. Every Christmas Day, hundreds of costumed reenactors gather at Washington Crossing Historic Park in Pennsylvania. They row replica Durham boats across the river, if conditions are safe. This December is the 74th crossing.

The town of Centralia, Pennsylvania, has been on fire since 1962. An underground coal seam ignited, creating sinkholes that vent toxic gas, forcing nearly everyone to leave. The fire still burns today and could continue for 250 more years.