Pennsylvania

Bethlehem Steel Employed 31,000 People at Its Peak. The Lehigh Valley Replaced It With Two Rival Hospital Systems and a Warehouse Boom -- Neither One Aware of the Other.

Beaver Stadium Holds 106,572 People, the Second-Largest Stadium in the Western Hemisphere. The Same University Also Holds the Largest Research Contract in Its Own History -- $3.47 Billion From the US Navy -- and Almost Nobody Outside the Field Has Heard of It.

Erie, Pennsylvania's Locomotive Plant Employed 5,000 People in 2012. It's Down to 1,400 After a Decade of Cuts and a Two-Month Strike. The City's Real Anchor Has Been a Century-Old Insurance Company the Whole Time.

By 2005, Real Language-Processing Companies Existed in Las Vegas, Pittsburgh, and a Utah Suburb. Not One Was in Silicon Valley.

Benjamin Franklin Started a Debate Club at 21. It Became America's First Lending Library, Then a Museum You're Still Allowed to Touch.

Gettysburg Was Reactivated Three Times in 162 Years. Whether There's a Fourth Is a Real, Open Question.

Harrisburg's Real Shape Isn't the State Capital. It's Ten Miles South, on an Island in the Susquehanna.

South Jersey Had a Real Identity for a Century Before Atlantic City Ever Had a Casino

Pittsburgh's Hill District Was Cleared Once for an Arena. It Got a Veto Before the Second One Was Built.

The pit was already there when the fire started

Four yards, four different reasons none of them closed