ERIE. A city, port of entry. and the county seat of Erie County, Pa., on Lake Erie, SS miles southwest of Ithtfalo, N. Y., and 95 miles northeast of Cleveland, Ohio (Map: Pennsyl vania, A 1). The city's supplies of nat ural gas, and its proximity to the coke and bituminous coal districts of the State, great ly favor its eommercial and industrial impor tance. The only lake port in Pennsylvania. Erie has a superb harbor. protected by a peninsula six miles long and a mile wide. called Presqne isle. The city receives a large part of the ship ping of the Great Lakes, and is also an impor tant railroad centre, being on the New York. Chicago and Saint Louis, the Pennsylvania, the Lake Shore and Michigan Southern, the Phila delphia and Erie, the Pittsburg, Bessemer and Lake Erie, and other railroads. Its lake freight business amounts to $80,000,000 annually, 1500 vessels touching at the port in a year, while its railroad freight tonnage is equivalent to 125,000 loaded cars. Erie has a considerable trade in agricultural products, and also extensive manu factures, which employ 11,000 men and repre sent an invested capital of $17,690,000. The annual output is valued at $21,000,000. The principal industrial plants include engine and boiler works, iron, brass, and aluminium foun dries, machine-shops, malleable-iron works, re fineries, chemical-works, tanneries, paper and flouring mills, stove-works, bicycle-works, and piano and organ factories. The city has beauti ful parks, a public library, two hospitals, a fine Government building, and the Pennsylvania Sol diers' and Sailors' Home. The government. as
provided for under the revised charter of 1889, is administered by a mayor, elected every three years, and a bicameral city council. Of the municipal departments, the boards of health and fire conunissioners are nominated by the execu tive and confirmed by the council; the board of tax revision and appeals is elected by the coun cil; the board of water commissioners is appoint ed by the Court of Common Pleas; and all other officials are chosen by popular election. The city's annual expenditures, for maintenance and opera tion, amount to about $140,000, the main items of expense being, $30,000 for the police depart ment, $50,000 for the fire department, and $140,000 for schools. The city owns its water works, which are operated at a yearly cost of $50,000. Population, in 1890, 40,634; in IMO. 52,733, including 12,000 persons of foreign birth and 200 of negro descent.
On the site of Erie stood the old French fort, Presque Isle, built in 1753. In 1760 the English took possession of it, and on Juno 22, 1763, dur ing, Pontiac's War, a large force of Indians com pelled the garrison to surrender. Erie was the headquarters of Commodore Perry in the War of 1812. and the fleet with which he defeated the British in the naval battle of Lake Erie, off Put in-Bay, was built and equipped here. The town was laid out and settled in 1795, by families from New England, was incorporated as a bor ough in 1805, and was chartered as a city in 1851. Gen, Anthony Wayne died here in 1796.