Launched in February 2025, Harrisburg Historical is a website and mobile app for exploring the histories of Pennsylvania’s Capital Region.

Built on Curatescape, a digital platform created by Cleveland State University’s Center for Public History + Digital Humanities, Harrisburg Historical offers users an innovative way to engage with local history through interactive maps, carefully researched stories, and rich multimedia content. At the heart of Harrisburg Historical is a collection of stories that connect significant places with the people who shaped, transformed, and gave them meaning. We offer stories as concise “Post-its” (ca. 100 words) that flag key locations and direct visitors to available online resources, “Briefs” (ca. 500 words) that provide short, focused narratives, and “Historical Essays” (ca. 1,000 words) that offer in-depth exploration of significant places and events. Stories are enriched with historic images, maps, primary sources, secondary resources, bibliography (linked to Zotero), audio, and video.

Besides the individual story, Harrisburg Historical also allows the visitor/user to explore thematic tours based on a collection of stories. You may choose to explore a tour virtually through your computer or mobile device, or experience it in person by enabling location services in the app to guide you through the historic sites. While we designed some tours especially for virtual exploration and others especially for walking, all are accessible in either format.

In February 2025, we have developed three tours. “The Chester Way: Harrisburg’s Centuries Long Quest for Civil Rights,” for example, features twenty stories that showcase the Capital Region’s crucial role in the long struggle for racial justice and equality. Organized chronologically from Colonial times to the present, it spotlights the role of faithful individuals, clubs, and institutions that advocated for freedom, suffrage, justice, rights, and opportunities for all. “The Chester Way Walking Tour of the Capitol Complex” offers an abbreviated version of that tour that focuses on the locations around the Capitol Park. We are currently in process of developing a tour titled “The Old Eighth Ward: The Vanished Neighborhood of the Pennsylvania State Capitol.”

Learn more about the launch of this exciting new app by reading our overviews here and here.

Access the Harrisburg Historical website, or download the mobile app for Apple and Android. Click on the icons below to download and begin exploring.

Harrisburg Historical is a project of the Digital Harrisburg Initiative, and is produced and managed by students and faculty of Messiah University’s Center for Public Humanities and Department of History, Politics and International Relations. Harrisburg Historical also marks a collaboration with local historians, regional institutions, and community partners, including the Historical Society of Dauphin County, Historic Harrisburg Association, Pennsylvania State Archives, and Commonwealth Monument Project. Generous funding has been provided by Messiah University’s Center for Public Humanities, Dean of the School of the Arts, Culture & Society, and the Council of Independent College’s Humanities Research for the Public Good Initiative.