Monaca Borough was named after French and Indian War era Indian Monacatootha in 1892. The shortened version of the name was first used by the Pittsburgh and Lake Erie Railroad at a station in town. The town was known by many names in its early years.
Fun facts about Monaca:
-Part of the borough once was called Appetite and it was patented to Ephraim Blaine in 1787.
-Polish nobleman France Helveti bought Appetite in 1813 and raised sheep for Merino wool.
–Boatbuilders Stephen Phillips and John Graham purchased property in 1822 to establish their boatyards. They built steamboats.
–Harmony Society seceders, led by Count de Leon, purchased the town area from the boatmen in 1834 to establish a community called New Philadelphia. This community dissolved and de Leon left the area; but many of the German Harmonists who had followed him stayed.
-The Borough of Phillipsburg was incorporated in 1840 from land acquired from Moon Township.
-Dr. Edward Acker established Watercure Sanatorium in Phillipsburg during 1848.
-The borough’s first post office was called Water Cure.
-Rev. William G. Taylor bought the Sanatorium buildings in 1865 for his Soldiers’ Orphans School. There was a dormitory, dining room, school, bath house, woodshed, carpenter shop and chapel. It burned in 1876.
-In 1866, Thiel Hall was established in town to provide a Christian education to youth of the Lutheran Church in Western Pennsylvania. Thiel College was incorporated in 1870 and relocated to Greenville in 1871.
–Phoenix Glass Co. began in 1880 as a chimney factory and began in 1884 making colored tableware. It continues making glassware today as Anchor Hocking.
-The East Rochester-Monaca Bridge was a toll bridge. The toll was removed in the 1970’s.
-In 2009 the Monaca School District merged with the Center School District to form the Central Valley School District.