Founded in 1776, Uniontown was known as "the Town of Union" by Henry Beeson, a Quaker born in Virginia in 1743 who had settled in the area in 1768, buying tracts of land and running a sawmill.

Uniontown's role in the Underground Railroad in the antebellum years is commemorated by a marker on the corner of East Main Street and Baker Alley.

In the late nineteenth century, the town grew based on the development of coal mines and the steel industry.

Fifteen guards armed with carbines and machine guns held off an attack by 1,500 strikers, killing five and wounding eight.

During the Coal Boom of the early part of the 20th century, Uniontown was home to at least 13 millionaires, the most (per capita) of any city in the United States.

"Coal barons" and Carl Laemmle, the president of Universal Films, sponsored the famous Uniontown Speedway board track from 1916 to 1922.

As with most of Western Pennsylvania, Uniontown's economy waned during the region's deindustrialization of the late 20th century, when the steel industry restructured and many jobs went elsewhere, including offshore.

The only United States Navy ship named for the city was USS Uniontown, a Tacoma-class frigate renamed from Chattanooga on August 16, 1944.

[13][14] In 2007, the Big Mac Museum was opened in North Huntingdon Township in Westmoreland County, to the disappointment of some Uniontown residents.

[15] According to a McDonald's spokesperson, the decision was based on logistics and access, but Uniontown residents complained in an article that was published in The Herald-Standard.

The largest white ethnic groups in Uniontown: 15.4% German, 13.4% Irish, 9% Italian, 6% Dutch, 5.6% English, 5.5% Polish.

The 3rd station, the Union Hose Building, located on East Main Street near Grant Street, houses the city's Emergency Management Agency and Emergency Operations Center, and provides housing for the fire bureau's reserve pumper, Engine #5.

The department has three accredited PA Fire Academy Local Level Instructors and a number of professional qualifications board testing evaluators.

The main route around town is a stretch of freeway bypass, the George Marshall Parkway, which is composed of parts of US 40 and US 119.

It serves as the southern half of the freeway before becoming a mountainous route through rural parts of the county and enters Maryland and reaches Interstate 68.

PA 43, part of the Mon–Fayette Expressway project to connect Pittsburgh with Morgantown, West Virginia, is complete around the Uniontown area.