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Beaver Falls is a city in Beaver County , Pennsylvania , United States . It is located 31 miles (50 km) northwest of Pittsburgh , and on the Beaver River , six miles (9 km) from its confluence with the Ohio River . A variety of manufacturing plants had kept the residents busy in the twentieth century, however, the city has suffered a fair amount of economic malaise lately due to the decline in the steel-making capacity in the Pittsburgh region where Beaver Falls is situated. Originally called Brighton , Beaver Falls was chartered as a borough in 1868 . It adopted the commission form of government in 1913 . Population counts were as follows: in 1890 , 9,735; in 1900 , 10,054; in 1910 , 12,191; in 1920 , 12,802; and in 1940 , 17,098. As of the 2000 census , the city population was 9,920, with the drop in its population being attributable to its being centrally located within the Rust Belt . On May 31 , 1985 , an F3 tornado hit just north of the city as it went across northern portions of Beaver County, as part of the eastern Ohio and Western Pennsylvania tornado outbreak. The city is perhaps best known in fiction as the setting of the television situation comedy Mr. Belvedere . It is also the birthplace of football player Joe Namath , Xavier head men's basketball coach Sean Miller , comedian Dan Rosenberg , and model Joanie Dodds . Ernest P. Kline , Pennsylvania's lieutenant governor from 1971 to 1979, resided in the city and represented it in the Pennsylvania General Assembly from 1965 to 1971. The plates for United States paper currency are manufactured here. Geneva College is located in the College Hill neighborhood on the north side of the city. The world's first recorded college basketball game occurred in the city on April 8 , 1893 when a team from Geneva College defeated the New Brighton YMCA.