Jacobs Creek is an

unincorporated community An unincorporated area is a region that is not governed by a local municipal corporation. Widespread unincorporated communities and areas are a distinguishing feature of the United States and Canada. Most other countries of the world either have ...

in Westmoreland County,

Pennsylvania Pennsylvania (; ( Pennsylvania Dutch: )), officially the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, is a state spanning the Mid-Atlantic, Northeastern, Appalachian, and Great Lakes regions of the United States. It borders Delaware to its southeast, ...

, United States. The community is located at the mouth of Jacobs Creek on the

Youghiogheny River The Youghiogheny River , or the Yough (pronounced Yok ) for short, is a U.S. Geological Survey. National Hydrography Dataset high-resolution flowline dataThe National Map accessed August 15, 2011 tributary of the Monongahela River in the U.S. s ...

, south of Smithton. Jacobs Creek has a

post office A post office is a public facility and a retailer that provides mail services, such as accepting letters and parcels, providing post office boxes, and selling postage stamps, packaging, and stationery. Post offices may offer additional serv ...

with ZIP code 15448, which opened on December 14, 1865.

History

The community was named after Jacobs Creek, a tributary of the Youghiogheny River, which in turn was named after Captain Jacobs, a local

Lenape The Lenape (, , or Lenape , del, Lënapeyok) also called the Leni Lenape, Lenni Lenape and Delaware people, are an indigenous peoples of the Northeastern Woodlands, who live in the United States and Canada. Their historical territory includ ...

chief who lived along the creek in the mid 1700s, and was killed in 1756 by Colonel John Armstrong's Expedition which wiped out the Native American village of Kittanning. The area was opened to settlers in 1768 following the signing of the

Treaty of Fort Stanwix The Treaty of Fort Stanwix was a treaty signed between representatives from the Iroquois and Great Britain (accompanied by negotiators from New Jersey, Virginia and Pennsylvania) in 1768 at Fort Stanwix. It was negotiated between Sir William J ...

. One of the first buildings in the Jacobs Creek settlement was the old log Jacobs Creek Methodist Episcopal Church, built in 1817. In December 1907, an explosion at the Darr Mine killed 239 men and boys from Jacobs Creek and the nearby settlement of Van Meter.

References

{{authority control Unincorporated communities in Westmoreland County, Pennsylvania Unincorporated communities in Pennsylvania