I'm here in Wilmerding Pennsylvania, on the banks of Turtle Creek.

Like so many other towns in western Pennsylvania, Wilmerding got its start as a company town.

In this case, George Westinghouse built the town in 1889 to house workers for his enormous airbrake operations.

The old office building for that is right behind me here.

The town was named for Joanna Wilmerding Negley, who owned the land before it was a town.

Wilmer dang is just the first of many weird Pennsylvania place names we'll be exploring in today's episode of Noles Explorers, and explains.

The next town up the road is Wall.

This land was first settled by the Wall Brothers and when the railroad came through, they built Wall Station, which was later shortened to just Wall.

Unlike its South Dakota counterpart, it does not have an 80ft tall dinosaur statue to welcome you to town.

Up in Butler County, we find the township and borough of slippery Rock, both named for a local creek, which is, of course full of slippery rocks.

The creek was named for a legendary episode in which Native Americans pursued colonial soldiers across the creek.

The soldiers crossed easily in their boots, but the Native Americans moccasins caused them to slip on the rocks.

The students at slippery Rock University have a certain sophomoric rhyming nickname for their school in town, which cannot be repeated on this channel.

Over in Indiana County is the village of Home, so-called because the post office was located in the Home of the postmaster.

More famously, however, Home was well home to the author Edward Abbey, and the hills and forests surrounding the village inspired his lifelong fascination with the natural world.

Further north in Potter County is the borough of Shinglehouse.

There is in fact more than one house in Shinglehouse, but in 1806 a French settler built a shingled tavern in the area, and the name stuck.

Wapwallopen in Luzerne County comes from the Lenape word apwallaping, meaning place of wild hemp, or where the white hemp grows.

To me, it sounds more like how the adult speak in Charlie Brown.

Down by Philadelphia is the Borough of Plymouth meeting.

A group of Quakers originally from Plymouth, England, built their meetinghouse here in 1708, following in the great English tradition of naming a new place after the place you just came from.

At least they differentiated it by adding meeting on the end.

Nearby and King of Prussia, the Quakers are to blame again, as they built a cottage here in 1719, which became the King of Prussia Inn in 1769.

Named for Frederick the Great of Prussia.

George Washington spent thanksgiving of 1777 here, a few weeks before staying the winter at nearby Valley Forge.

What's more American than that?

After World War Two, the convergence of four highways made the area a natural shopping and office hub, and for decades the original inn stood in the median of route 202.

It has since been relocated and restored.

Today, the area is best known for housing the third largest shopping mall in America and having some of the worst traffic in the world.

And again, I ask, what's more American than that?

Over in Lancaster County, we have Fivepointville, and you'll never believe how many points are in this ville.

Rather unoriginal name for the five roads that intersect here.

Fivepointville Road, Dry Tavern Road, Maple Grove Road, Pleasant Valley Road and Dry Tavern Road in the other direction.

Nearby is Willow Street.

The main road through this town used to be lined with willow trees that have since almost entirely been removed.

Two points of interest here are the oldest house in Lancaster County, as well as the first gun manufacturer to build a long rifle across the river in York County.

We have the Borough of Railroad Pennsylvania, not to be confused with the Pennsylvania Railroad built along the Northern Central Railway, a railroad that connected Baltimore and Harrisburg in 1858.

This town has probably the least creative name of any railroad town in the country.

Finally, out west in Somerset County, we have Brothersvalleytownship.

All one word.

The first township in Pennsylvania organized west of the Allegheny Mountains.

The name came from the German Baptists or the drunkards, a religious congregation who called themselves brethren.

Their new home west of the mountains became brothers tall or in English.

Brothers Valley.

And that's all I have for you in today's edition of Weird Pennsylvania Place Names.