Port Allegany, PA

Port Allegany began as Canoe Place, a river stop founded in 1816 where travelers could build or repair canoes before heading along the Allegheny. The name changed in 1838, but the river connection stayed. The borough sits in the Allegheny foothills along U.S. 6, with Smethport west and Coudersport east. Its industrial chapter is unusually specific: Pittsburgh Corning made glass block and Foamglas here for decades, and the Cameo Doll Company produced Kewpie dolls in town from the 1930s into the late 1960s. That gives Port Allegany two very different local signatures—river travel and factory work—with the Kewpie story still turning up in regional history collections.