7 Storybook Towns In Pennsylvania

Pennsylvania’s storybook towns come with details no novelist could invent. In Pottstown, aging horses find a peaceful retirement at Ryerss Farm for Aged Equines, the nation’s oldest nonprofit horse sanctuary. Cranberry invites visitors inside a restored one-room schoolhouse. Mount Joy keeps history turning at Spangler’s Mill, where flour has been ground since 1854. Each of these towns has its own enchanting tale for travelers and future residents alike.

Cranberry

Cranberry is home to about 35,000 residents in Butler County, which makes it the county's largest municipality and one of the fastest-growing communities in the Pittsburgh area. The name comes from the wild cranberries that once grew along Brush Creek. A twenty-one-year-old George Washington walked through here in 1753 on the Venango Path, carrying the message that ordered the French out of northwestern Pennsylvania. The historical society has restored many of the area's original buildings, including a one-room schoolhouse. Three municipal parks handle the recreation side, along with Cranberry Highlands, the township golf course that Golf Digest named Pennsylvania's best municipal course in 2009. Juniper Grill and Firebirds Wood Fired Grill are the dinner options most people name, and Burgatory is the local pick for burgers and milkshakes.

York

York blends a walkable downtown, scenic views along Codorus Creek, and a history that predates the country itself. The Continental Congress met here through the winter of 1777 and into 1778, and it was in York that the delegates adopted the Articles of Confederation. The Old Town Historic District holds the densest concentration of the buildings that followed, and the York County History Center covers the rest of the region's story. Heritage rail survives just south of the city. The Northern Central Railway of York runs a replica 1860s steam locomotive out of the restored 1870s station in New Freedom, about fifteen miles down the line. Haar's Drive-In has been showing films since 1953 in Dillsburg, roughly the same distance northwest, and it runs weekends between Memorial Day and Labor Day.

Pottstown

Pottstown's attractions span more than two centuries. Pottsgrove Manor, the 1752 Georgian home of town founder John Potts, anchors the historic district. Ryerss Farm for Aged Equines, founded in 1888, is the oldest nonprofit horse retirement farm in the country. About eighty retired horses live on its 383 acres in South Coventry Township, a fifteen-minute drive west of the borough, and visitors can walk the pastures at no charge. The Carousel at Pottstown was built in 1905 by the Philadelphia Toboggan Company and spent its first years at Euclid Beach Park in Cleveland before volunteers here spent the better part of two decades restoring it. It turns on weekend afternoons. Depending on when you're in town, you might catch a play at the Steel River Playhouse. Pottstown's small-town scale makes it easy to see all of it in a single afternoon.

New Castle

New Castle carries two nicknames that sum up its identity: the "Fireworks Capital of America" and the "Hot Dog Capital of the World." The pyrotechnics trade took root here in the late 1800s, when Italian immigrants who had learned the craft at home worked the city's mills by day and built fireworks at night. Pyrotecnico traces its founding to 1889 and has been in New Castle since 1922, and the Zambelli family started making fireworks in the city in the same era. The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office recognized the fireworks title in 2006. The hot dog claim comes from the chili dogs Greek immigrants brought to town in the early 20th century. The Lawrence County Historical Society keeps the local record, and the Hoyt Center for the Arts runs gallery exhibitions and classes. A few miles east on old Route 19, Harlansburg Station fills a replica depot and four retired passenger cars with one collector's lifetime of transportation artifacts, open Saturdays and Sundays. Pagley's Pasta & More, on East Washington Street, makes its pasta in house.

Manchester

Manchester is the smallest town on this list, home to fewer than three thousand people. It was settled in 1814 as the village of Liverpool and incorporated in 1869, and its merchants were raided by the 17th Virginia Cavalry during the Gettysburg campaign. The landmarks now are modest and well used. The Gazebo at the Square anchors the borough's December tree lighting, and Manchester Community Park has a recreation building on South Liverpool Street that rents by the day for almost any occasion. Debbie's Pizza and Peking Chinese Restaurant cover dinner, and Bobcat Creamery handles dessert.

Lansdale

Lansdale is a Montgomery County borough of about nineteen thousand residents, connected to Philadelphia by a direct SEPTA rail line. The North Penn School District serves the borough, and the downtown grid is compact enough to cover on foot. The Liberty Bell Trail runs out of town along the bed of the old Liberty Bell trolley line. Discover Lansdale, the volunteer group behind most of the borough's events, is restoring the historic Reading freight house on South Broad Street. Saturday mornings between May and December, the Lansdale Farmers' Market sets up at Penndale Middle School. The event calendar is unusually full for a town this size, with First Fridays through the warm months, a beer tasting festival at Memorial Park in September, and Oktoberfest in October.

Mount Joy

Mount Joy sits on Route 230, which runs through the middle of the borough as Main Street, about twelve miles northwest of Lancaster. Spangler's Flour Mill has been grinding on North Market Street since 1854, when Gabriel Bear built it as a steam mill. It is a working commercial mill rather than a visitor attraction, so it is a building to look at from the sidewalk rather than tour. Bube's Brewery is the one to go inside. Alois Bube, a Bavarian immigrant, built the brewery and hotel in 1889. The complex has run nearly continuously since then, and the restaurant now seats diners in the vaulted stone cellars where the beer once aged. On the fourth Friday of the month, downtown shops stay open into the evening for Fourth Friday, which usually brings live music and sidewalk displays with it.

The Details That Set Them Apart

Seven towns, four regions, and no shortage of one-off details worth the detour: a horse sanctuary older than most towns' fire departments, a golf course Golf Digest ranked first in the state, a hot dog capital with the fireworks to match. Whether you're weighing a move, planning a weekend trip, or just curious what's a short drive from home, each of these Pennsylvania towns has at least one thing you won't find described the same way twice.