Johnstown
Johnstown, PA
Region: The Alleghenies
Johnstown is best known for a famous tragedy: the bursting of a dam in 1889. The resulting Johnstown Flood killed thousands and created an unprecedented media frenzy. The Johnstown Flood Museum commemorates the disaster, and an award-winning documentary tells the story in heartbreaking detail. Luckily, Johnstown was a tough steel town that 20 million tons of water could not destroy. Today, the city boasts a symphony orchestra, a nationally recognized Folk Fest, a gallery of the Southern Alleghenies Museum of Art, and a branch campus of the University of Pittsburgh. Visitors in search of a thrill can ride the Johnstown Inclined Plane, built in 1891 and listed in the Guinness Book of World Records as the "steepest vehicular inclined plane in the world."
