LeRaysville, PA

LeRaysville is a borough in eastern Bradford County, set inside Pike Township near the Susquehanna County line. The borough sits at the center of the township's road network: East Street comes in from the east and ends in LeRaysville, while Ford Street runs from the south to the center of the township. The surrounding country is cut by Wyalusing, Gaylord, Rockwell, Johnson, Williams, and other creeks, giving the place the unmistakable stream-and-hill texture of northeastern Pennsylvania. It is the kind of borough whose map is best read through roads and water rather than big municipal boundaries.

LeRaysville's civic history is older than its small scale suggests. Pike Township was organized in 1813, and the borough separated from it in 1863; the post office dates to 1827. The name honors James Le Ray de Chaumont, the French-born landowner whose holdings shaped this part of eastern Bradford County. Today the local picture is agricultural, with small farms, the Leraysville-Pike Volunteer Fire Department, the Northeast Bradford School District, and the borough as the township's central settlement. The local scoop is that LeRaysville is both a separate borough and the place Pike Township's roads naturally point toward.