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The Butler area was first settled in 1796. The City of Butler was established in 1803, three years after the county of Butler was formed. Although the county seat, Butler wasn’t chartered as a borough until 1817. The land that the borough was to occupy had been granted to Revolutionary War financier Robert Morris. John and Samuel Cunnigham obtained grants from Morris, and subdivided it into the lots of the borough. The agricultural town, bereft of canals linking it to the country’s transportation system, grew slowly. After oil was discovered near-by, railroads came, industry followed, and the borough experienced a population boom. Its population doubled in size between 1900 and 1910, from 10,000 to 20,000.
Two major mills opened in Butler during that decade. The Standard Steel Car Company built a mill producing rolling stock for railroads at Butler in 1902. The company merged with Pullman in 1930, becoming Pullman-Standard. The second major mill was built by the Forged Steel Wheelworks in 1906. Forged Steel was acquired by Columbia Steel in 1926 and the following year the American Rolling Mill Company (Armco) bought Columbia Steel. The first Jeep was produced by the American Bantam Company in their Butler plant in 1929. In the 1940s, both Pullman-Standard and Armco were going strong. The population peaked at near 25,000.
Since the 1940s, the closure of both Pullman-Standard and Armco, combined with suburban flight to outlying townships, took their toll on the city. The city lost 40% of its residents in the intervening decades. The population now stands at just over 15,000.
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