Palo Alto, PA

Palo Alto stretches along the south bank of the Schuylkill River in Schuylkill County, with Bacon Street serving as its main street. The borough keeps its own fire department while sharing a ZIP code, telephone exchanges, and school district with nearby Pottsville. That practical relationship is easy to see on the map: the river defines Palo Alto's edge, and Pottsville supplies many of the larger regional connections.

The settlement was laid out by John G. Hewes in 1844 and 1845 and incorporated in 1854. Before the streets filled in, the wooded site had a log cabin and a blacksmith's shanty. The Philadelphia and Reading Railroad and the Schuylkill Navigation brought stops to the river corridor, then coal mining, a rolling mill, and a railroad roundhouse made Palo Alto part of the industrial movement around Pottsville. The old transportation pattern still shapes the borough's compact form: Bacon Street, the river, and the routes into Pottsville organize the place today for residents.