Pike County is comprised of 13 local units of government; eleven townships of the second class and two boroughs. Townships are governed by a Board of Supervisors. Boroughs are governed by a Council and a Mayor. The local municipalities are authorized by state statute to levy and collect taxes, provide a broad range of services, adopt and enforce regulations to protect the health, safety, and general welfare of the residents of Pike County.

The area of Pike County is 542 square miles, including approximately 13 square miles of water. Thirty-two percent (32%) of Pike County land is under the ownership of the state and federal government.

A BRIEF HISTORY OF PIKE COUNTY, PA

From the time the original Lenape were conquered by the Iroquois, the Pike County area has been rich in history. Many prehistoric artifacts have been located.

Thomas Quick, a Dutch settler came from New Netherlands in 1733. Other early settlers came from Connecticut because that colony had a claim to northern Pennsylvania. Enroute to Pennsylvania's Wyoming Valley, some decided to stay at Milford and at a settlement near Wallenpaupack.

The French & Indian War saw a skirmish at Mill Rift, the American Revolution saw skirmishes at Raymondskill, Paupack, & Mast Hope. The Connecticut settlers had a fort at Paupack. The Grave of the Unknown Soldier of the Revolutionary War Battle at Minisink is at Lackawaxen.

Pike County was formally erected in 1814, and its original Court House still stands in Milford between the 1872 Court House and the County Administration Building.

The earliest industry was lumbering, and lumber was taken by raft to build the cities on the lower Delaware River. Another major industry was quarrying, which provided the sidewalks of New York and many other cities.

To carry coal from the mines near Scranton, PA to the furnaces of New York, the Delaware & Hudson Canal was constructed in 1825, and the Erie Railway opened in 1848. Both cut through Pike County, creating jobs and providing transportation. The Canal crossed the Delaware via the still-standing Roebling Aqueduct.

While 263 Pike County men fought in the Civil War, Shohola Township saw the fatal wreck of a train carrying 800 Confederate prisoners of war to the prison camp at Elmira, NY. Lincoln's assassination at the end of the war gave Pike another intimate connection to that era, as a flag stained with the President's blood was brought to Milford and is preserved by the Pike County Historical Society.

Hundreds of hotels and boarding houses throughout the County took visitors during the nineteenth century and, with easy access from New York City by rail, tourism became a major industry, attracting not only the working classes but many of the rich and famous. The first quarter of the twentieth century saw silent movies made at Shohola Glen, Milford, and Dingman's Ferry.

In 1963, President John Kennedy dedicated Grey Towers, the home of Pennsylvania's Governor Gifford Pinchot, as the Institute of Conservation Studies. Pinchot served as the first Chief of the US Forest Service under President Theodore Roosevelt, who, like William Cullen Bryant, William Tecumseh Sherman, Franklin Roosevelt, and many others have visited the old castle-style home.

In Pike County Zane Grey wrote his western novels, and Stephen Crane went camping. Here Horace Greeley founded a commune, and Dan Beard began a boy scout camp. Charles Saunders Pierce developed a philosophy, and Thomas Edison went fishing.

Today Lake Wallenpaupack, the Upper and Middle Delaware, the Pocono region, and the State game land, forest land, and park land attract thousands of visitors annually, while the County's residential population had quadrupled during the past forty years.