FIRSTS: Pennsylvania may have been the second state to join the United States of America, but there are plenty of times that residents of the Keystone State have been first.
The Pennsylvania Senate has a brochure about firsts.
We are the first among states in the number of licensed hunters. The first in rural populations, in covered bridges, state game lands, and in production of potato chips, pretzels, scrapple, sausage and mushrooms.
Pennsylvania was the first state to manufacture root beer and lager beer, along with platinum metal, mustard, printer’s ink, wallpaper and jeans.
Residents of the Commonwealth have invented, patented or discovered many things, including the Conestoga Wagon, the Ferris Wheel, the Franklin stove and the Big Mac.
But that is far from all. Also credited to Pennsylvanians are the polio vaccine, shock absorber, bifocals, the apple parer, the soldering gun and the slicing machine. Flash cubes, cable cars, folding machines, accordions, the revolving door, water softeners, the process of sandblasting, and the printing press in America are also from Pennsylvania.
The nation’s first capital was Philadelphia. The first television broadcast was in Pittsburgh.
The first magazine was in Pennsylvania, too. Unsurprisingly, Benjamin Franklin was involved.
This, from Magazines.com: “The first American magazines were published in 1741. Philadelphia printers Andrew Bradford and Benjamin Franklin—who owned rivaling newspapers—both raced to publish the first American magazine. Bradford ultimately claimed the honor by publishing American Magazine first. Benjamin Franklin’s General Magazine was published three days later. Neither magazine met with much success: Bradford’s publication folded after three months, and Franklin’s lasted only six months.”
The first full-scale nuclear power plant was in Pennsylvania, too. The Shippingport Atomic Power Station in Beaver County supplied electricity to Pittsburgh via nuclear power.
And the Pennsylvania Turnpike was the first high-speed, multi-lane highway.
The Pennsylvania State Police were the first organized state police force in the nation, instituted in 1905.
