Butler, PA (pop. 15,121) is a small city about 33 miles north of Downtown Pittsburgh. It is the seat of Butler County (pop. 174,083). It is part of the Pittsburgh MSA. Butler is not part of Pittsburgh's Urbanized Area, but has its own Urban Cluster of about 40,600 people. Butler was founded in 1802. In 1941, the Jeep prototype was developed at American Bantam's facility in Butler. There is a rather large neighborhood of spectacular Victorian mansions northeast of Downtown. Today, Butler remains an attractive regional satellite city working on a downtown revitalization programme. AK Steel is a major employer in Butler.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/9/90/Map_of_Pennsylvania_highlighting_Butler_County.svg/800px-Map_of_Pennsylvania_highlighting_Butler_County.svg.png

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Butler County Courthouse... I am aware of the symbolism... but I could do without the cheesy cardboard cutout yellow ribbon detracting from this magnificent piece of architecture...
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Downtown Butler seemed pretty active... even in the early morning... while its retail mix doesn't quite reach its potential... there are quite a few interesting restaurants and shops downtown
http://i531.photobucket.com/albums/dd360/pittsburghrules/butler/DSC05143.jpg

I didn't capture it in my photos... but there's a really cool system of brick alleyways in Downtown Butler... and a lot of fantastic historic churches
http://i531.photobucket.com/albums/dd360/pittsburghrules/butler/DSC05144.jpg

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Downtown Butler redevelopment plan... hopefully the architecture of the hotel turns out a little better than that rendering... one of the existing downtown lots is GRAVEL! Ugh!
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that attractive old house has a tumor (Burger Hut)
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I love pink houses
http://i531.photobucket.com/albums/dd360/pittsburghrules/butler/DSC05180.jpg

a beautiful shade of lemon
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As Architorture told us, this 128 year old brick house was moved down Main St. a couple weeks ago to preserve it from demolition
http://i531.photobucket.com/albums/dd360/pittsburghrules/butler/DSC05182.jpg

one of many gorgeous downtown churches... wish I had captured more but the early morning lightning wasn't always right
http://i531.photobucket.com/albums/dd360/pittsburghrules/butler/DSC05183.jpg

the southwest corner of Butler is pretty gritty and severe
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http://i531.photobucket.com/albums/dd360/pittsburghrules/butler/DSC05188.jpg

but the West End gets nicer as you move north
http://i531.photobucket.com/albums/dd360/pittsburghrules/butler/DSC05189.jpg

Butler is surrounded by lush hills
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I was really amazed at how extensive Butler's mansion district is
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Butler's SouthSide is a middle class neighborhood... it is extremely steep and offers some great views of Butler... such as this one
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...

next we travel to the small town of Slippery Rock (pop. 3,068), located in northwestern Butler County about 17 miles northwest of Butler and 50 miles north of Downtown Pittsburgh. Slippery Rock is an extremely small village, and most of the population consists of students at Slippery Rock University of Pennsylvania, one of our many state universities. It's kinda surprising that a larger town wouldn't develop around the university to make money off the over 7,000 students there.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/2/29/Map_of_Slippery_Rock%2C_Butler_County%2C_Pennsylvania_Highlighted.png/400px-Map_of_Slippery_Rock%2C_Butler_County%2C_Pennsylvania_Highlighted.png

http://i531.photobucket.com/albums/dd360/pittsburghrules/westwood/slipperyrock.jpg

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SRU's campus
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SRU has a couple monumental structures... such as Old Main
http://i531.photobucket.com/albums/dd360/pittsburghrules/butler/DSC05230.jpg

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small but attractive downtown... this tanning salon seemed to be the largest business downtown
http://i531.photobucket.com/albums/dd360/pittsburghrules/butler/DSC05232.jpg

Very small... but Slippery Rock did give me a sort of "mountain resort" feel... it reminded me of a much less mountainous and less hippie Boone, NC (home of Appalachian State)
http://i531.photobucket.com/albums/dd360/pittsburghrules/butler/DSC05233.jpg

North Country Brewing looked like a cool place to relax... but I had to hit the road...
http://i531.photobucket.com/albums/dd360/pittsburghrules/butler/DSC05234.jpg

Nice pictures. Butler looks like a town that is half Pittsburgh-like, and half Northern Tier-like.

i get a photobucket bandwidth update thing?

Check back later, Architorture... long story but I've been having some issues with my photo hosts lately. Hopefully it's resolved soon cuz I'm losing a lot of potential "viewership" of these threads... :(

fixed

looks good- appears you stopped about a street short of my house...

i was looking for your distinctive house lol

i had visited Butler briefly a couple times before... but this was the first time I toured the whole city... and I must say I was surprised and impressed... I think it definitely holds its own against say Washington and Greensburg.. I really like the cohesion between downtown and residential neighborhoods... a lot of cities like this tend to have dead zone buffer rings around downtown

yeah its not too bad...but they do need to do something about getting more of the mainstreet storefronts filled up...

there is also alot of vacant upper stories in those buildings b/c they can't occupy them due to current building code and accessibility issues