Little Lithuania, USA

Schuylkill County in Pennsylvania's coal region holds a quiet distinction: it has the greatest concentration of Lithuanian ancestry of any county in the United States. Lithuanian immigrants began arriving in the late eighteen hundreds, drawn by work in the anthracite mines. They built churches, fraternal organizations, and tight-knit communities.

The local chapter of the Knights of Lithuania is among the oldest in the nation and continues to celebrate and preserve that heritage today. The Reverend Andrius Stupinskas, who led one of the first Lithuanian American Catholic congregations in the country, founded in eighteen seventy-two, is buried nearby at Saint George cemetery. This corner of Pennsylvania became, against all odds, one of the most Lithuanian places in America.