Geography of Johnstown
Johnstown, Pennsylvania, a city in Cambria County. It is in the Allegheny Mountains, on the Conemaugh River, about 60 miles (97 km) east-southeast of Pittsburgh. For more than a century most of the city's jobs were in coal mining and the manufacture of steel. Since the mid-1980's, however, steelmaking and mining have declined and health services and retail trade now provide most of the city's jobs. A branch of the University of Pittsburgh is in Johnstown.
Johnstown was settled in 1793 and laid out in 1800. On May 31, 1889, a dam on the Little Conemaugh River burst, causing a flood that took 2,209 lives in Johnstown and nearby areas. A second flood, resulting in 25 deaths, occurred in 1936. A flood-control system was then built but it was overrun when exceptionally heavy rains fell in 1977, causing yet another major flood. This one took 77 lives.
Population: 23,906.