Smethport is a borough and county seat of McKean County, Pennsylvania, United States. The mayor is Wayne V. Foltz. The population was 1,430 at the 2020 census. Smethport is part of the Bradford, PA Micropolitan Statistical Area. Smethport, having the coldest temperature ever recorded in Pennsylvania, is the coldest place in Pennsylvania and one of the coldest towns in the contiguous United States.

Smethport is situated in the Pennsylvania Wilds region, in a hilly area a brusque distance from the Allegheny National Forest and Kinzua Bridge State Park. Smethport is just about two hours from Erie and Buffalo. The highest point upon U.S. Route 6 east of the Mississippi River is near Smethport at Bush Hill.

Smethport was founded in 1807 by Dutch estate investors who were surveying a large tract of house they purchased from the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, and was named in tribute of a Dutch banking family, the De Smeths, who financed the house investments. The town’s first situation was a water-powered sawmill built by John Applebee in 1822. Smethport became the McKean County chair in 1826 and was incorporated as a Borough in 1853. The sawmill’s pretentious pond is now the centerpiece of Hamlin Park. Smethport has ties to General Thomas L. Kane who organized the Bucktail Regiment during the Civil War; the borough is home to an active work of Bucktail re-enactors.

The borough has been the location of offices for several plant industry firms. From the 1870s to the prematurely 1900s, Smethport was an important middle for the East Coast hardwoods industry and enjoyed a timber-fueled economic boom that allowed the construction of many mansions that today make going on a historic architectural district.