Felton, PA

Felton is a York County borough of 501 people at the 2020 census, set within the York-Hanover metropolitan area. Its story is tied to a railroad: the borough took its name from Johannes Felton Ziegler, a man affiliated with the financiers who planned the line that began as the York and Peach Bottom Railway and later became the Maryland and Pennsylvania Railroad. Felton incorporated in 1899 from pieces of three townships, and the railroad helped give a very small place its reason to exist.

Pine Run and Muddy Creek pass through the borough, with small bridges threading the streets and a central park used for picnics and Memorial Day observances. The old school opened in 1883, expanded in 1902, and later closed after Felton joined the Red Lion Area School District; the building site eventually went to Bethany Church. Those details make Felton's present shape easy to picture: a compact York County borough where stream crossings, a park, a war memorial, and railroad history carry much of the local story.