Laurel Hill, also known as Laurel Ridge or Laurel Mountain, is a seventy-mile ridge in Pennsylvania’s Allegheny Mountains and one of the defining landforms of the Laurel Highlands. Averaging about 2,700 feet in elevation, it is crossed by major routes and bordered by the deep Conemaugh and Youghiogheny gorges. In the 1770s it served as a political dividing line in the Pennsylvania-Virginia boundary dispute, including Governor John Murray’s August 1774 assertion of Virginia’s authority west of the ridge. Today it is heavily protected and used for recreation, with state parks, forests, game lands, hiking trails, and distinctive cool, wet habitats supporting rich plant and animal life.

Edie, Pennsylvania · USA