Wilkes-Barre ( WILKS-bair(-ee) or WILKS-bar) is a city in Pennsylvania, which functions as both the administrative hub and the primary population center of Luzerne County. Located along the Susquehanna River in Northeastern Pennsylvania, it had an estimated population of 44,523 in 2025. It is part of the Wyoming Valley metropolitan area, which includes five cities and more than 40 boroughs forming a contiguous urban corridor with an estimated 574,000 residents.
Wilkes-Barre is surrounded by the Pocono Mountains to the east, the Endless Mountains to the north and west, and the Lehigh Valley to the south. The city was founded in 1769, incorporated as a borough in 1806, and re-incorporated as a city in 1869. It experienced significant growth in the 19th century due to the development of nearby anthracite coal mines and a large influx of immigrant labor. As its industry continued to expand into the 20th century, the population peaked at over 86,000 in 1930.
Following World War II, the city's economy declined due to the collapse of industry and the 1959 Knox Mine disaster, which rendered much of the region's coal mining infrastructure unusable. In the 21st century, the city's population is approximately half its 1930 peak, but it remains the largest city in Luzerne County and the 11th-largest city in Pennsylvania. Wilkes-Barre is located 49 miles (79 km) north-northwest of Allentown, 97 miles (156 km) north-northwest of Philadelphia, and 106 miles (171 km) west-northwest of New York City.
History
Before 1700
For thousands of years, nomadic bands of hunter-gatherers used the Wilkes-Barre area for hunting, fishing, foraging, and toolmaking. Numerous artifacts from the Archaic period (about 8000–1200 BC), including stone spear points, net weights, and scrapers have been found in the area. Pottery and arrowheads from the Early and Middle Woodland periods (c. 1200 BC–950 AD) have also been found. In the Late Woodland period (c. 950–1550 AD), horticulture was adopted and more permanent settlements were established in the Wyoming Valley.
18th century
During the eighteenth century, refugee communities of Lenape, Shawnee, Conoy, Nanticoke, and Mahican settled in the Wyoming Valley. Moravian missionaries began visiting the region and working among these communities in the 1740s. In 1753, the Susquehanna Company was founded in Connecticut for settling the Wyoming Valley in present-day Pennsylvania. Connecticut succeeded in purchasing the land from the Native Americans; however, Pennsylvania already claimed the very same territory through a purchase they made in 1736. In 1762, roughly two hundred Connecticut settlers (Yankees) established a settlement near Mill Creek. They planted wheat and constructed log cabins. The Yankees returned to New England for the winter.
The Connecticut settlers returned in the spring of 1763 with their families and additional supplies. A party of Iroquois also visited the area with the dual purpose of turning the Lenape tribe against the colonists and killing Teedyuscung, a local Lenape chief. On April 19, 1763, the residence of the chief, along with several others, was set ablaze. Chief Teedyuscung perished in the inferno. The Iroquois let the Lenape believe that this atrocity was committed by the settlers. As a result, the Lenape attacked the colonists on October 15, 1763, killing thirty settlers and taking several others as prisoners. Those who managed to escape fled back to New England. The Lenape then burned what was left of the settlement.
In 1769, the Yankees returned to the Wyoming Valley. Five townships were established by Connecticut. Each one was five square miles and divided amongst forty settlers. Wilkes-Barre Township was one of the original townships; it was named in honor of John Wilkes and Isaac Barré—two British members of Parliament who supported colonial America. Pennsylvanians (Pennamites) also arrived in the valley that same year.
The Connecticut settlers established Fort Durkee, which was named in honor of their leader, Colonel Durkee. This was immediately followed by the Pennamite-Yankee War—a series of skirmishes between Pennsylvanian and Connecticut settlers. The land changed hands several times between the two groups. The Congress of the Confederation was asked to resolve the matter. With the Decree of Trenton, on December 30, 1782, the confederation government officially decided that the region belonged to Pennsylvania, and the Wyoming Valley became part of Northumberland County.
During the Revolutionary War two forts were built at Wilkes-Barre. Fort Wilkes-Barre was completed in 1778 but was abandoned and burned later that year following the Battle of Wyoming. Fort Wyoming (later renamed Fort Dickinson) was constructed when the Continental Army reoccupied the Wyoming Valley and served as a staging area for the Sullivan Expedition in 1779.
After the Revolutionary War the State of Pennsylvania ruled that the Connecticut settlers were not citizens of Pennsylvania. They were not permitted to vote and were ordered to give up their property claims. In May 1784, armed men from Pennsylvania force-marched the Connecticut settlers away from the valley. By November, the Yankees returned with a greater force. They captured and destroyed Fort Dickinson in Wilkes-Barre. With that victory, a new state (which was separate from both Connecticut and Pennsylvania) was proposed. The new state was to be named Westmoreland. To ensure that they did not lose the land, Pennsylvania's state government negotiated a compromise with the Connecticut (Yankee) settlers. The Yankee settlers would become citizens of Pennsylvania and their property claims would be restored prior to the Decree of Trenton. As part of the compromise, Pennsylvania would establish a new county in Northeastern Pennsylvania. The Yankees agreed to the terms.
On September 25, 1786, the Pennsylvania General Assembly passed a resolution which created Luzerne County. It was formed from a section of Northumberland County and named after Chevalier de la Luzerne, a French soldier and diplomat during the 18th century. Wilkes-Barre became the seat of government for the new territory. This resolution ended the idea of creating a new state.
In 1797, several decades after the community's founding, Louis Philippe, later the King of France from 1830 to 1848, stayed in Wilkes-Barre while traveling to the French Asylum settlement.
19th century
Wilkes-Barre's population skyrocketed due to the discovery of anthracite coal in the 19th century. In 1808, Judge Jesse Fell of Wilkes-Barre discovered a solution to ignite anthracite with the usage of an iron grate; it allowed for the coal to light and burn more easily. This invention increased the popularity of anthracite as a fuel source. This led to the expansion of the coal industry in Northeastern Pennsylvania; Wilkes-Barre was nicknamed "The Diamond City" due to its high productivity of mining coal. The growing demand for coal as a domestic heat source resulted in changes to patterns of immigration to Wilkes-Barre in the 19th century. The Pennsylvania guide, compiled by the Writers' Program of the Works Progress Administration in 1940, noted that:
Until 1870 all immigration was from the north of Europe, with the Irish predominating. Then mine operators sent representatives to central and southern Europe to induce peasants to come to the American coal fields. Many of the older workers consequently were supplanted by newcomers willing to work for low wages, and bitter conflicts followed. The cleavage along national lines, however, gave to Wilkes-Barre such picturesque sections as Five Points, now East End, where a crowd of miners used to gather nightly on the steps of Mackin Brothers' Store, a scene described by Con Carbon in a popular ballad of the 1890s:
And once thy peaceful tide
The Far Downs and Connaught men
Fight, and then make up again,
Dutch and Scotch and English men—
All like chickens in a pen.
The powder smoke does be so thick,
You could not cut it with a pick,
The smell of gas would make you sick
In front of Mackin's store.
— Federal Writers'Project, "Part II: Cities and Towns", Pennsylvania: A Guide to the Keystone State (1940)
Throughout the 1800s, canals and railroads were constructed to aid in the mining and transportation of coal. Hundreds of thousands of immigrants flocked to the city; they were seeking jobs in the numerous mines and collieries that sprang up throughout the region. In 1806, Wilkes-Barre Borough was formed from a segment of Wilkes-Barre Township; it was later incorporated as a city in 1871. This was the direct result of the population boom. At its peak, Wilkes-Barre had a population of over 86,000 in the 1930s and 40s.
New industries were established and the Vulcan Iron Works was a well-known manufacturer of railway locomotives from 1849 to 1954. During Wilkes-Barre's reign as an industrial and economic force in America, several major companies and franchises became based in the city, such as Woolworth's, Sterling Hotels, Miner's Bank, Bell Telephone, Luzerne National Bank, and Stegmaier.
Even though the overall economy was doing very well, the city was still prone to natural disasters. Besides frequent flooding from the Susquehanna River, Wilkes-Barre also endured a devastating F3 tornado on August 19, 1890. The twister killed 16 people, injured 50, damaged or destroyed 260 buildings, and cost at least $240,000 (in 1890 money).
20th century
Wilkes-Barre is located within Pennsylvania's Coal Region. The anthracite coal mining industry, and its extensive use of child labor in the early 20th century, was one of the industries targeted by the National Child Labor Committee and its hired photographer, Lewis Hine. Many of Hine's subjects were photographed in the mines and coal fields near Wilkes-Barre. The impact of the Hine photographs led to the enactment of child labor laws across the country.
The coal industry continued despite several disasters, including an explosion at Wilkes-Barre's Baltimore Colliery in 1919, which killed 92 miners. The industry declined when the United States switched to other energy sources, and most coal operations had left Wilkes-Barre by the end of World War II. The 1959 Knox Mine Disaster, resulting in the flooding of numerous mines, marked the end of large-scale coal mining in the area. Industrial restructuring also caused the city to lose jobs and begin a decades-long decline.
In 1926, Planters Peanuts Company was founded in Wilkes-Barre by two Italian immigrants. The company maintained its headquarters in the city until 1961. In 1929, baseball player Babe Ruth hit one of the longest home runs in history at Artillery Park in Wilkes-Barre.
On November 8, 1972, Wilkes-Barre became the birthplace of modern cable television programming when Home Box Office (HBO) launched over the city's Teleservice Cable system (now Service Electric Cable). Around 365 Teleservice subscribers were the first to receive the premium cable service when it commenced broadcasts. As local ordinances prohibiting direct-to-cable telecasts of theatrical feature films prevented Time-Life from launching HBO over its New York City-based Sterling Manhattan cable franchise, the company initially sought an agreement with Teleservice to launch it on the provider's Allentown system; possible television blackout conflicts for HBO-televised NBA games, as Allentown was located within the Philadelphia 76ers's 75-mile [121 km] blackout radius, resulted in Teleservice electing to offer it on its Wilkes-Barre system instead.
Wilkes-Barre became the site of a shooting spree on September 25, 1982. George Emil Banks killed 13 people and wounded one. Banks was deemed incompetent to be executed and died on November 2, 2025, of natural causes.
Flooding
Manufacturing and retail remained Wilkes-Barre's strongest industries, but the city's economy took a major blow from Tropical Storm Agnes in 1972. The storm pushed the Susquehanna River to a height of nearly 41 feet (12 m), four feet above the city's levees, flooding downtown with nine feet of water. A total of 128 deaths were attributed to the storm. Most drowning deaths were caused by people trapped in their cars. Almost 400,000 homes and businesses were destroyed and 220,000 Pennsylvanians were left homeless (as were hundreds of thousands in other states). Damage was estimated to be $2.1 billion in Pennsylvania alone. President Richard Nixon sent aid to the area, after flying over in his helicopter on his way to his Camp David retreat (on June 24, 1972).
Throughout the 1970s and 1980s, Wilkes-Barre attempted to prevent the damage from storms as intense as Agnes by building a levee system that rises 41 feet (12 m); completed in January 2003, the network of levees cost roughly $250 million. It has successfully resisted other threatening floods in 1996, 2004, and 2006. The Army Corps of Engineers has praised the quality of the levees. In 2006, the city made the front page of national newspapers when 200,000 residents were told to evacuate in the wake of flooding that was forecast to reach levels near that of 1972, though the flooding fell short of predictions.