Bradford, Pennsylvania
| Bradford | |
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| City | |
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Zippo Building
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 Bradford
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| Coordinates: 41°57′33″N 78°38′41″W / 41.95917°N 78.64472°WCoordinates: 41°57′33″N 78°38′41″W / 41.95917°N 78.64472°W | |
| Country | United States |
| State | Pennsylvania |
| County | McKean |
| Settled | 1823 |
| Incorporated | 1879 |
| Government | |
| • Type | City Council |
| • Mayor | Tom Riel |
| Area | |
| • Total | 3.5 sq mi (8.9 km2) |
| Population (2000) | |
| • Total | 9,175 |
| • Density | 2,659.7/sq mi (1,026.8/km2) |
| Time zone | Eastern (EST) (UTC-5) |
| • Summer (DST) | EDT (UTC-4) |
| Zip code | 16701 |
| Area code(s) | 814 |
| Website | City of Bradford |
Bradford is a city in McKean County, Pennsylvania, United States, close to the border with New York State and approximately 78 miles (126 km) south of Buffalo, New York. Bradford is the principal city in the Bradford, PA Micropolitan Statistical Area.
Settled in 1823, Bradford was chartered as a city in 1879 and emerged as a wild oil boomtown in the Pennsylvania oil rush in the late 19th century. The area's Pennsylvania Grade crude oil has superior qualities and is free of asphaltic constituents, contains only trace amounts of sulfur and nitrogen, and has excellent characteristics for refining into lubricants. The Bradford & Foster Brook Railway was built in 1876 as one of, if not the first, monorails in America, when Bradford was a booming oil town. World-famous Kendall racing oils were produced in Bradford.
Bradford was the site of an important step in the development of personal aviation. In the 1930s, the Taylor Brothers Aircraft Corporation produced an airplane called the Taylor Cub in Bradford. After a fire at the factory, the company was bought by William T. Piper. After relocating his factory to Lock Haven, Pennsylvania, Piper resumed production of a revised design of the airplane first produced in Bradford, which became the world-famous Piper Cub.
The population peaked at 19,306 in 1930, but at the 2010 census had dropped to 8,770. Two adjoining townships, home to approximately 9,000 people, make the population of Greater Bradford about 18,000. Famous Bradfordians include the opera singer Marilyn Horne, the Hall of Fame baseball player Rube Waddell and the five-time All-Star football player Stew Barber. A famous perpetual motion machine hoax was created in Bradford in 1897 by J.M. Aldrich; it was exposed in the July 1, 1899, issue of the Scientific American magazine, leading to a four-month prison sentence in the county jail.
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