Carlisle, PA Summary

Located in the rolling, rural hills of Cumberland County, 23 miles west of Harrisburg in southcentral Pennsylvania, this city of 18,400 has seen its share of historic events since its founding in 1751. Two local residents, James Wilson and George Ross, signed the Declaration of Independence. They were chosen to represent Carlisle at the Continental Congress in the First Presbyterian Church (1757), which still stands.

The church served as President George Washington’s headquarters during the 1794 Whiskey Rebellion, a crucial test of the new federal government’s authority in which grain farmers and whiskey producers rebelled against an excise tax on whiskey. Mary Ludwig, better known as Molly Pitcher, the heroine who provided water to and then fought beside American troops during the Battle of Monmouth (June 28, 1778) in New Jersey, lived here as well. A monument marks her grave in a cemetery on East South Street.

Carlisle Indian School, the first non-reservation school for Native Americans, was established in 1879 at Carlisle Barracks. For 39 years it educated 6,000 Native American children, including 1912 Olympic champion Jim Thorpe. It is now site of the US Army War College and its Military History Institute.

At Carlisle Barracks, 1 mile north of town on US-11, visitors can tour the Hessian Powder Magazine Museum, in a building that Hessian troops—German mercenaries hired by the British to fight against American forces during the Revolutionary War—constructed in 1777.

Carlisle can be reached via I-76 and I-71.