Burgettstown, PA

Burgettstown was laid out by Sebastian Burgett in 1795, and the borough still sits inside Smith Township’s patchwork of small communities near the Pittsburgh metro. The old town center has a practical civic spine: Burgettstown Community Library on Kerr Street, the school district’s middle/high school and elementary center, and the surrounding roads that lead toward Langeloth, Paris, and the other township settlements. The library began in the early 1940s through the Junior Women’s Club, moved from Railroad Street to its current location, and expanded alongside the school’s education building.

Then there is Star Lake. The Pavilion at Star Lake, at 665 Route 18 just outside the borough, brings a major concert calendar to a borough with 1,424 residents in 2020. Its summer shows put Burgettstown on the Pittsburgh music circuit, while the library and schools mark the borough’s everyday center. Burgettstown’s map combines a small borough civic core with a much larger regional stage down Route 18: schools, library, and township roads on one side, a major outdoor venue on the other.