Eddystone, PA

Eddystone is a Delaware County borough of 2,459 people at the 2020 census, on the north bank of the Delaware River below Philadelphia. Its name came from the Eddystone Lighthouse, and the borough grew around the Eddystone Print Works, a textile plant that moved here in 1876. Worker housing near the center survives as The Village, while Lighthouse Hall, built in 1880, remembers the town's early social life. Eddystone incorporated in 1888.

Then the riverfront turned industrial in a much bigger way. Baldwin Locomotive Works built a massive plant here; during World War I, the Eddystone Rifle Plant and ammunition works produced military hardware. Sun Shipbuilding's yard occupied part of the borough and employed tens of thousands at its peak. The industrial story continues through Exelon's riverfront power station, Penn Terminals, and the Eddystone Rail facility, while Eddystone Elementary and Ridley School District bring the present-day map back to neighborhood scale. Eddystone is a compact river borough with a factory-sized past.