Canonsburg: The Small-Town Music Capital of the World
Near Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
Canonsburg, Pennsylvania, eighteen miles southwest of Pittsburgh, was laid out in seventeen eighty-nine by Colonel John Canon, after whom it's named. It grew into a coal and steel town like so many others in Washington County. The town was incorporated in eighteen oh two, the same year Jefferson College was founded here as the first institution of higher learning west of the Allegheny Mountains.
From nineteen eleven to nineteen twenty two a Standard Chemical Company mill in Canonsburg refined radium, and from nineteen forty two to nineteen fifty seven Vitro Manufacturing refined uranium that the government used in the Manhattan Project. But Canonsburg has a peculiar distinction that the residents are happy to remind you of: the community of roughly nine thousand people has produced two of the biggest pop stars of the twentieth century. Perry Como was born here in nineteen twelve, started cutting hair at age ten to support his family, and eventually traded the barbershop for a microphone.
Bobby Vinton was born here in nineteen thirty-five, and his father, Stan Vinton, was a locally popular bandleader. Both men became household names on radio and television. The town now calls itself the Small-Town Music Capital of the World and has honored both of them.
A statue of Perry Como stands in town. Como received a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in two thousand two.
