Parker, in the extreme northwestern part of Armstrong County, is the county’s only city. It was named for Judge John Parker, lead surveyor of Lawrenceburg and founder and owner of Parker’s Landing, the two villages that later combined to create Parker. Lawrenceburg had been settled in 1819 for the Bear Creek Furnace operators. The oil boom reached the area in the spring of 1865 on the William E. Robinson farm just north of present-day Parker, but residents did not become truly excited until 1869, when they recognized the importance of the surrounding oil fields. Derricks soon covered the land, Parker’s Landing became a major center of activity, and Lawrenceburg filled with operators and drillers. Nine highly successful wells on Stump Creek Island helped make Parker’s Landing one of the top oil producers, and by November 1869, 1,056 wells in Parker and Lawrenceburg were completed, producing, or being drilled. Hundreds of industries appeared, the population grew to more than 20,000, another 5,000 people lived on boats along the Allegheny River, millionaires built large mansions on the bluff, and every available space was occupied. During the western Pennsylvania oil boom, Parker’s Landing along the river and Lawrenceburg on the bluff were incorporated on March 1, 1873, as the City of Parker. The Parker Oil Exchange, organized on March 4, 1875, became the central trading body in the petroleum fields, where fortunes could be made and lost in a day, and for several years it handled the largest volume of trading in the entire oil region. The boom quickly collapsed, however, as production dwindled by 1878 and many wells ran dry. In 1879, a disastrous fire destroyed almost the entire waterfront section of the city and wiped out 83 buildings in a single night. Little effort was made to rebuild, and the city’s economy collapsed further. By 1880, homes that had cost thousands sold for mere hundreds. In only 10 years, Parker had risen from a village of 1,000 residents to a booming city and then returned to about 1,000 people, giving it its reputation as the “Smallest City in the USA.” Parker drew national attention again in 2014, when a massive ice jam on the Allegheny River caused flooding and attracted tourists and news reporters.