Ickesburg, PA

Ickesburg is a census-designated place in Saville Township, Perry County, at the junction of Pennsylvania Routes 17 and 74. Panther Creek runs through the place before joining Buffalo Creek, which feeds the Juniata River. The ZIP Code is 17037. Saville Township describes the surrounding country as mountainous and overwhelmingly agricultural, with Ickesburg one of its two small population centers. That gives the place a clear role: a crossroads settlement in a rural township, with roads and creeks doing much of the organizing.

Ickesburg's older history is tied to mail, milling, churches, and the families who settled the valleys around it. In the nineteenth century it was one of Saville Township's post villages and the starting point for a stage route carrying mail between Millerstown, Newport, and nearby settlements. Early Lutheran families gathered near Ickesburg before a church was built in the area, and mills along Buffalo Creek connected local farms to the stream. Today PA 17 is locally called the Tuscarora Path and PA 74 Veterans Way. The names are a good fit for a place where older routes, working farmland, and Appalachian foothills still meet.