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About 20 miles southeast of Pittsburgh, North Huntingdon, Pennsylvania is a prosperous residential and business community in Westmoreland County. With the defeat of a coalition of Native American tribes during Pontiac’s War in 1763, more settlers entered the area which would become North Huntingdon. Apparently named after the English Earl of Huntingdon, the town was settled mostly by Germans, Irish and Scottish immigrants who established small farms along Brush Creek. In 1850 a large deposit of coal from the voluminous Pittsburgh seam was discovered under the farms of North Huntingdon and nearby Irwin. Seven years later the Shafton Coal Company built a mining operation along the route of the Pennsylvania Railroad. By 1880 the Shafton mine was bringing over 20,000 tons of coal out of the ground each year. The Shafton Mine morphed into the Westmoreland Mine and eventually the Irwin Foundry and Mine Car Company. In 1910, a bloody labor strike rocked the mining communities in Westmoreland County. Miners from the United Mine Workers of America, looking for improved wages and working conditions, walked off the job sparking an immediate response from mine owners who evicted thousands of families from company owned housing. The owners also imported workers from Eastern Europe, paying for them to come to America and promising them housing. This wave of immigrants, combined with the horrible conditions of the striking miners, brought the ordeal to an end in 1911. Many miners were blacklisted and had to leave Pennsylvania. Coal mining flourished into the 1950’s but in recent years has all but disappeared. Today, few remnants of the coal industry remain as North Huntingdon has transitioned to a retail economy with about half of its residents commuting to jobs in Pittsburgh and Greensburg.

A North Huntingdon tutor will keep you caught up on your studies so you can take time away from the books to experience the interesting things to do in North Huntingdon and the surrounding area. With eleven public parks, North Huntingdon offers a variety of recreational opportunities to its residents. Braddock’s Trail Park, the area’s largest, features a scenic waterfall and lookout with more than three miles of trails. Indian Lake Park is ideal for outdoor enthusiasts who can hike, bike, run or rollerblade along the park’s paths. The park also offers fishing in its five-acre lake. Oak Hollow Park has traditional amenities such as athletic fields, basketball courts and playgrounds.

For fast food connoisseurs, North Huntingdon is home to the Big Mac Museum Restaurant. Housed in a working McDonald’s, the museum features a 14-foot-tall Big Mac, the iconic double decker sandwich invented by McDonald’s Pennsylvania franchise owner Jim Delligati in 1967. The museum has it all, including a bronze bust of Delligati, various memorabilia, a high tech Big Mac global map and colorful wallpaper screaming, “two all-beef patties special sauce lettuce cheese pickles onions on a sesame seed bun.”

It’s just a short drive south to Greensburg to visit the Westmoreland Museum of American Art. The museum is devoted to American art and particularly the art of southwestern Pennsylvania. Opened in 1959 the museum hosts masterpieces from America’s greatest artists including Mary Cassatt, John Singleton Copley and John Singer Sargent. Besides its permanent collections, the museum offers rotating exhibitions. Recent exhibits have highlighted fashion in art, art of movement and folk art in America.