Sharon, Pennsylvania

Sharon is a city located in Mercer County, Pennsylvania, 75 miles (121 km) northwest of Pittsburgh. Sharon was settled in 1795. It was a borough until the twentieth century. Thanks to its large coal deposits, Sharon was once a major industrial center, with rolling mills, boiler and machine shops, furnaces, flour mills, ordnance works, and manufactories of explosives, nails, horse collars, spokes, chains, stoves, and lumber products. In 1900, the population was 8,916 persons; in 1910, 15,270 persons; in 1920, 21,747 persons; and 25,622 people lived in Sharon in 1940. Today there is still some steel and metalworking as well as other manufacturing, but like most of America the city has been the victim of deindustrialization; most of the city's job growth today is in the service sector. As of the 2000 census, the city had a total population of 16,328.

Profile

Despite its small size, Sharon is a remarkably diverse community. Approximately 10 percent of city residents and 19 percent of students enrolled in the city's public schools are minorities, giving it the second-highest minority concentration in Mercer County. Sharon's neighborhoods reveal further diversity--the west side consists mainly of older, dense family homes (many of which are over a century old); the north and south sides contain a mixture of dense millworker houses and 1960s-style suburban development as well as some subsidized housing; the east side is home to many large and beautiful homes, some of which have changed hands for nearly $500,000; and the downtown is home to four massive senior complexes (Connelly, Riverview, Vermeire, and McKelvey manors), loft apartments over storefronts, and subsidized housing. The city is also home to over thirty churches that house Roman Catholic, Methodist, Presbyterian, Baptist, Jewish, Orthodox, and other congregations.

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The city operates unter the PA third-class city charter, with a mayor-council form of government. The current mayor is David O. Ryan, though he faces a tight race against city councilman Robert Lucas in November of 2005.

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