Where to Stay in Erie, Pennsylvania

What is Erie known for?

Erie stands on the south shore of Lake Erie, the state's single outlet to the Great Lakes, and the Erie Maritime Museum keeps the record of the traffic that gave the city its reason to exist. The Perry Monument marks the water. Beyond the shore the city carries the Erie Art Museum, the Erie Zoo and Erie Veterans Memorial Stadium, which together give it a list that does not depend on the lake.

What are the main landmarks in Erie?

The Erie Maritime Museum belongs to the lake. The Perry Monument stands over the same water, the Erie Art Museum holds the city's collections back among the streets, and the Cashier's House and the Thayer-Thompson House carry the older domestic architecture. Churches mark the corners: the Church of the Holy Trinity, the First Presbyterian Church of the Covenant and the Russian Old Rite Orthodox Church of The Nativity.

Then come the fields and the stands. Ainsworth Field and Erie Veterans Memorial Stadium take the crowds, while the Erie Zoo and the Hammermill Center fill out the rest.

What is the history of Erie?

Erie was laid out in 1795. The site had one obvious asset, a harbour on the south shore of Lake Erie, and the settlement grew as the only point at which Pennsylvania reaches the Great Lakes. Shipping followed the harbour.

The Erie Maritime Museum holds that part of the record, and the Perry Monument commemorates the naval history the same water carries. Erie County formed around the town, which became its seat and has kept the courts and the county offices since. Industry came with the lake trade.

Manufacturing filled the ground behind the shore, the Hammermill Center standing for that side of the city, and Erie grew into the fifth-largest place in Pennsylvania while remaining the largest anywhere on the state's lake front. Immigration shows in the churches. The Russian Old Rite Orthodox Church of The Nativity, the Church of the Holy Trinity and the First Presbyterian Church of the Covenant record congregations that arrived with the work, while the Cashier's House and the Gideon Ball House survive from the earlier town.

Buffalo, Cleveland and Pittsburgh all sit within a few hours by road, which has kept Erie tied to three larger economies at once.

Where is Erie?

Erie occupies the south shore of Lake Erie, the one stretch of Great Lakes coast that Pennsylvania holds, with Erie County spread behind it. The lake is the northern limit. The city covers a small area for its rank, which puts the Erie Zoo, the Erie Art Museum and Ainsworth Field within a few minutes of one another.

Buffalo, Cleveland and Pittsburgh are the nearest large cities.

What is the climate of Erie?

Lake Erie runs the weather. A body of water that size holds its warmth well into autumn and gives it up over the shore once the cold arrives, so the seasons here begin later and end later than the temperate band alone would suggest. Snow belongs to that pattern.

Summer turns the shore into the busiest ground in the city, with the Perry Monument and the Erie Zoo taking the daylight and the Erie Art Museum keeping the wet afternoons.

How do you get to Erie?

Three cities set the distances. Buffalo lies about 80 miles off, Cleveland about 90 and Pittsburgh about 120, which puts Erie within a half-day drive of all three and makes the road the ordinary way in. The lake blocks one direction.

Nothing arrives across the water except by boat, so every land approach comes through Erie County and the roads behind the shore, while the harbour itself still works the Great Lakes.