Kittanning, PA

Kittanning is Armstrong County’s borough seat on the east bank of the Allegheny River, about 36 miles northeast of Pittsburgh. The 2020 census counted 3,921 residents. The name comes from the Lenape word Kithanink, “on the main river,” and the borough stands on the site of an eighteenth-century Lenape village at the western end of the Kittanning Path. The Armstrong County Courthouse and Jail and Allegheny River Lock and Dam No. 7 are reminders of the river town’s older infrastructure. The Armstrong Power Plant operated here from 1958 to 2012, another chapter in the borough’s working history. Today, Kittanning’s center is still tied to the river, county offices, the Armstrong School District, and the Kittanning Public Library, which dates to 1923.

Riverfront Park is the main gathering ground, with summer movies, markets, festivals, fireworks, and school events showing up through 2026. Market Street and the surrounding downtown carry the small-business side, while the bridge keeps the borough connected across the Allegheny. Kittanning is not just an old courthouse town or a river view. It is a county-service center with a Lenape place name, a working bridge, a public library, and a calendar that keeps pulling people back to the water.