photo by gusto

Pennsylvania’s capital city is located in the southern part of the state along the Susquehanna River. While the city itself counts only 52,400 residents, it is part of a metropolitan area of almost 588,000 people. The State Capitol, on Capitol Hill, is in a 13-acre park. The 600-room edifice has a 272-foot-high dome, bronze doors, murals, statuary, and stained-glass windows.

Across from the Capitol is the State Museum of Pennsylvania, which has free exhibits depicting Pennsylvania’s pre-history and history. Among its permanent features is a gallery dedicated to Quaker leader and Pennsylvania Colony founder, William Penn.

The nineteenth-century Brockerhoff House includes interior scenes depicting American home life in the early and late nineteenth century. The exhibits include a full-scale replica of a Delaware Native American village, Peter Frederick Rothermel’s huge mural of the Battle of Gettysburg, paleontology and geology exhibits, and a planetarium.

Look for the riverfront John Harris/Simon Cameron Mansion, the home of John Harris Sr (a ferry operator and William Penn’s ambassador to the colony’s Native Americans), and John Harris Jr, who laid out the city of Harrisburg in 1785 and donated land for the Capitol grounds. In 1863 the house became the home of Simon Cameron, a former US senator and President Abraham Lincoln’s first secretary of war.

The 40-acre Fort Hunter Mansion and Park occupies a bluff overlooking the Susquehanna River and the Blue Mountain Range. Fort Hunter is a restored nineteenth-century plantation with nine structures listed on the National Register of Historic Places. Benjamin Chambers, the founder of Chambersburg, originally settled the property in 1725. Faced with the increasing threats posed during the French and Indian War, also known as the Seven Years War (1754-63), the British built a number of small forts in the area, among them Fort Hunter. The fort was later abandoned and former Continental Army Captain Archibald McAllister purchased the site, turning the property into a self-sufficient frontier village.

The authentic paddlewheeler Pride of the Susquehanna provides cruises on its namesake river from May through October. It is docked at City Island, across the river from the State Capitol.

The world’s attention turned to the Harrisburg area in 1979 when loss of coolant threatened a catastrophic meltdown of the reactor core and release of radiation at the nuclear power plant on nearby Three Mile Island, on the Susquehanna River. It is the United States’ worst nuclear accident.

Gifford Pinchot State Park is 17 miles south of Harrisburg, between US-15 and I-83. It offers camping, swimming, boating, fishing, hiking, cycling, horseback riding, ice skating, and cross-country skiing.

Numerous highways, including interstates, intersect at Harrisburg, which is 106 miles west of Philadelphia. Harrisburg has an international airport, and also rail and bus service.