First State Police Force in America
Near Harrisburg, Pennsylvania
The Pennsylvania State Police, founded on May second, nineteen oh five, was the first uniformed state police force of its kind anywhere in the United States. Governor Samuel Pennypacker signed the creating legislation in response to fears of labor unrest following the Anthracite Coal Strike of nineteen oh two, which had paralyzed the nation's coal supply and required President Theodore Roosevelt to intervene directly. The new force gave Pennsylvania a professional, mobile law-enforcement body that could operate anywhere in the state.
Twenty years later, in nineteen twenty-four, the State Police established its first formal training academy right here in Hershey, where cadets trained for thirty-six years until a newer facility was built. Every state police force in America traces some part of its organizational DNA back to this Pennsylvania model.
