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York County, PA
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Created on August 19, 1749, from part of Lancaster
County and named either for the Duke of York, an early
patron of the Penn family, or for the city and shire of
York in England. The name may have been suggested by the
proximity to Lancaster County, as the names are used
together often in English history. York, the county
seat, was laid out in 1741 and incorporated as a borough
on September 24, 1787. It was chartered as a city on
January 11, 1887.
 Pennsylvania’s
1736 purchase from the Iroquois encompassed this area.
The town of York was termed “Yorktown” in the colonial
period. Cresap’s War showed Maryland’s desire to have
the area, but it was yielded in 1760, and the matter
finalized by the Mason-Dixon Line. York was the capital
of the U.S. from September 1777 to June 1778, where the
Articles of Confederation were adopted. Agriculturally
abundant from the start, York was very productive in
corn, wheat, hemp, and whiskey. There was a canal from
York to the Susquehanna in 1833. Five railroads served
the county, and in the 1920s the Lincoln Highway boosted
truck transportation. Products could be sold in both the
Philadelphia and Baltimore markets and, later on,
Pittsburgh as well. Early iron manufacturing did not
lead to steel making but spawned metal products
specialties such as farm implements that are still
productive. Cigar making was a leading business until
the 1930s. Wagonmaking led to truck, auto, and railroad
car manufacture. Building water wheels led to making
turbines. Papermaking began early, followed by a
printing industry. Ice cutting spawned refrigeration and
air conditioners. Confections, safe vaults, barbells,
quarried slate, chains, organs and pianos, rope, and
silk were produced. Inventors and innovators gravitated
toward York. High-speed steel, metal building panels and
the Jeep were conceived here. The “York Plan” was a
World War II system for cooperation to mobilize small
industry to win the war; it was replayed for the Korean
War. Deindustrialization has been less severe than other
Pennsylvania industrial counties, although local
ownership dropped. York is the sixth Pennsylvania county
in value added to the economy from manufactures. Farms
cover 48 percent of the land. Long the second most
productive farm county (behind Lancaster), it is now
seventh. About half the county is farmed; York is second
only to Lancaster in number of farms. It is the leader
in wheat and soybeans, and strong in corn, hogs, cattle,
fruit and sheep. |
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