Cranberry Municipal Center
2525 Rochester Road Suite 400
Cranberry Twp PA 16066
Phone: 724-776-4806
Fax: 724-776-5488
Email: [email protected]
Description:
In 1804 Butler County was officially designated as a county, and the original four townships were divided into 13. Some of those townships were named for prominent citizens or for physical features such as streams flowing through them. Our township was named Cranberry Township for the wild cranberries then growing along Brush Creek. In 1854 the 13 townships were further divided into the present 33 townships.
Cranberries grow in bogs. A bog is a name for soft, moist, spongy soil, such as a swamp or marsh. Other plants found in bogs, or swamps, include cattails, ferns and mosses. Cranberries grow on vines which spread along the ground. The berries turn red when they ripen in the fall. Wild cranberries are like the ones we buy in stores except they are smaller.
When the early settlers arrived in the 1790s they found wild cranberries growing along Brush Creek. But cranberries were not unique to this area. Years earlier, when the Pilgrims arrived in America, they found cranberries growing in New England. Cranberries are said to have been among the foods eaten at the first Thanksgiving feast in 1621. As people moved inland, they continued to find cranberries growing in low-lying, marshy areas. Because cranberries prefer a cool, moist climate, they are rarely found south of here.
During the 1800s, the early settlers dug ditches to drain many of the marshy areas. They then used the land to plant crops and graze their cattle. The land where Fernway is today was once a swamp. It was later a cornfield. Still later it became a housing development. Gradually, as the marshlands were drained for farmland, the wild cranberries lost much of their habitat. Habitat is a place where plants, birds and animals grow and live naturally.