Lyons, PA

Lyons began as Lyon Station in 1860, when the railroad reached this part of Berks County. The community was named for Charles Lyons, a railroad official, and the old name still makes sense when you picture the borough as a place built around tracks, depots, and the people who followed them. Three miles south of Kutztown, Lyons sits within a Pennsylvania Dutch landscape whose foodways and traditions remain part of the local calendar.

Each September, the Lyons Fiddle Festival brings traditional Pennsylvania Dutch food, crafts, dancing, and fiddling contests to town, drawing a large regional crowd. The event began in 1983 and has grown into the borough’s signature gathering, the kind of annual date that keeps a railroad-era name connected to living local culture. Lyons also has a ballfield tied to the fire company, adding another everyday gathering place. Its story runs from Lyon Station to fiddle strings, with Berks County’s old traditions still audible in the background. The borough’s calendar keeps the old name in circulation.