Tarentum, PA

Tarentum sits on the Allegheny River in Allegheny County, about 22 miles northeast of Pittsburgh. The river, railroad, and bridge toward New Kensington give the borough its shape: glass, paper, steel, and brick manufacturing once clustered along this corridor, and the Pennsylvania Railroad ran a station through town. Tarentum grew as a working river borough, with the Allegheny setting the town's outlook toward the Allegheny-Kiskiminetas Valley. The bridge toward New Kensington carries that river connection into the neighboring city.

To trace that industrial inheritance, the Allegheny-Kiski Valley Heritage Museum on East Seventh Avenue gathers artifacts and stories from the surrounding river valleys. The Community Library of Allegheny Valley also began in Tarentum: its first reading room opened in the 1901 YMCA built with money from plate-glass manufacturer John Baptiste Ford. The Tarentum branch closed in 2020, and its local-history holdings moved to the Harrison Library. Highlands Elementary is in the borough, with the rest of the Highlands School District's schools in nearby communities.