Yukon, PA

Yukon is a census-designated place in South Huntingdon Township, Westmoreland County, north of Wyano and near Interstate 70. The 2010 census counted 677 residents. It sits in a township shaped by two different kinds of terrain: open, rolling ground and the Youghiogheny River valley, with coal deposits and the old Pittsburgh and Connellsville Railroad corridor running along the river. That larger landscape helps place Yukon on the map - it is a small settlement within a township built around transport, mining, and river crossings.

Yukon also carries a difficult labor history. It became a center of the Westmoreland County coal strike of 1910-1911, often called the Slovak Strike because many miners were Slovak immigrants. On May 8, 1911, county sheriff's deputies fired into a crowd of labor protesters. The event remains part of the story of the mining communities along this stretch of Westmoreland County. Today Yukon is still an unincorporated place with a post office identity and a road network tied closely to South Huntingdon Township, but its past reaches well beyond a dot beside I-70.