![wnep school closings or delays nepa wnep school closings or delays nepa](https://media.tegna-media.com/assets/WNEP/images/2641d7b5-bcf0-402f-8059-5d28482c853b/2641d7b5-bcf0-402f-8059-5d28482c853b_1140x641.jpeg)
![wnep school closings or delays nepa wnep school closings or delays nepa](https://media.tegna-media.com/assets/WNEP/images/3128528a-da5e-4aff-ba3e-04fb465aa7ce/3128528a-da5e-4aff-ba3e-04fb465aa7ce_1140x641.jpeg)
Six years later, the United States' first streetcars powered only by electricity began operating in the city. The city's nickname "Electric City" began when electric lights were introduced in 1880 at the Dickson Manufacturing Company. The city was designated as the county seat when Lackawanna County was established in 1878, and a judicial district was authorized in July 1879. Under legislation allowing the issue to be voted by residents of the proposed territory, voters favored the new county by a proportion of 6 to 1, with Scranton residents providing the major support. Lackawanna County did not gain independent status until 1878. People in northern Luzerne County sought a new county in 1839, but the Wilkes-Barre area resisted losing its assets. It was the site of the Scranton General Strike in 1877. It became a major industrial city and a center of mining and railroads it attracted thousands of new immigrants. Scranton was incorporated on February 14, 1856, as a borough in Luzerne County and as a city on April 23, 1866. Scranton is the geographic and cultural center of the Lackawanna River valley and Northeastern Pennsylvania, as well as the largest of the former anthracite coal mining communities in a contiguous quilt-work that also includes Wilkes-Barre, Nanticoke, Pittston and Carbondale. The city is conventionally divided into nine districts: North Scranton, Southside, Westside, the Hill Section, Central City, Minooka, East Mountain, Providence and Green Ridge, though these areas do not have legal status. It hosts a federal court building for the United States District Court for the Middle District of Pennsylvania.
![wnep school closings or delays nepa wnep school closings or delays nepa](https://media.tegna-media.com/assets/WNEP/images/c10b7335-739d-421f-9791-e7fcbddb7f9b/c10b7335-739d-421f-9791-e7fcbddb7f9b_1920x1080.png)
With a population of 76328 as of the 2020 United States Census, Scranton is the largest city in northeastern Pennsylvania and the Scranton–Wilkes-Barre–Hazleton Metropolitan Statistical Area, which has a population of about 570,000. It is the county seat and largest city of Lackawanna County in Northeastern Pennsylvania's Wyoming Valley. Scranton is the sixth-largest city in the U.S.