Grove City, Pennsylvania: From Pine Grove to Grove City

Grove City in Mercer County began in seventeen ninety-eight when settler Valentine Cunningham arrived and soon built a grist mill along Wolf Creek. The community that grew up was called Pine Grove for most of the nineteenth century. The Pittsburgh, Shenango and Lake Erie Railroad reached Pine Grove in eighteen seventy-two, and Pine Grove Normal Academy was chartered to grant degrees in eighteen seventy-six.

When the borough incorporated in eighteen eighty-three, officials changed the name to Grove City to avoid confusion with another Pennsylvania community. Mercer County itself was named for Hugh Mercer, a general killed at the Battle of Princeton in the Revolutionary War. Grove City today has about eight thousand residents and is home to Grove City College, a private liberal arts institution with deep roots in the town's founding era.