Jonestown, PA (Borough)

Jonestown is a Lebanon County borough in the northern Lebanon Valley, near the Swatara Creek. The 2020 census counted 1,629 residents. The town was laid out in 1761 as Williamsburg and incorporated as a borough in 1870, and its location still reads like a transportation crossroads. The Swatara Feeder, part of the Union Canal system, once ran north from the creek near Jonestown toward the coal country. Today, Jonestown sits among the rural roads and creek valleys of Swatara and Union townships, with Lebanon and the Harrisburg-area road network nearby.

Borough offices handle the small practical matters of permits and local services, while nearby Swatara State Park carries the canal and geology story into trails and water. Route 72 and local township roads tie the borough to the surrounding valley. The watercourse still gives the borough its shape on the valley floor. It is a small Pennsylvania borough whose place on the creek connects its early growth to its present-day setting.