Railroad, PA

Railroad is a borough in York County, Pennsylvania, whose name tells the first part of its story. The community began as Shrewsbury Station after a railway was established nearby in 1838, a mile west and downhill from Shrewsbury Borough. Local people referred to the trip as going to the rail road, and a post office using the name Rail Road opened in 1858. The borough incorporated in 1871, by which time the station had grown into a place of homes, businesses, and industry. The Northern Central Railway connected the area with Baltimore and Harrisburg, putting Railroad inside a larger corridor of freight and passenger movement.

Railroad's surviving buildings keep that period visible. The Railroad Borough Historic District was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1984 and includes brick and stone structures from the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The Anstine and Helb Building and Messiah Lutheran Church are among the places tied to the borough's industrial and civic growth. The name can sound like a joke until the map is understood: Railroad really did grow out of a station, a post office, and the work that followed the tracks. It is a small Pennsylvania borough with a very direct connection between its name and its built history.