West Middlesex, PA

West Middlesex grew on the Shenango River, in a part of Mercer County where early settlers, mills, furnaces, and later school districts all gathered around the valley. Families including the Byers, Wylie, Bell, and Vanfleet names were here by the late 18th century. James Gilkey laid out the town in 1836, and the borough followed in 1864.

The river remains the town's organizing feature, running through the borough as part of the Shenango Valley. Its industrial chapter ran deep: a log grist mill appeared in 1818, a sawmill and flour mill followed, and charcoal and coke furnaces made West Middlesex one of the valley's early iron centers. The borough's present-day map is compact, but its river corridor still points toward the larger Mercer County communities on either side. Today the West Middlesex Area School District serves the borough along with Shenango and Lackawannock townships, from Head Start through grade 12. The result is a place where a small borough, a working river, and a regional school community overlap.