Trainer, PA

The Delaware River has long been Trainer’s working edge, and the borough was incorporated in 1919 from Lower Chichester Township. David Trainer’s gristmill became a cotton mill in 1837, and the Linwood Mills grew around waterpower, rail, roads, and steamer access. Oil refining took over the river edge in the twentieth century. The Trainer Refinery now straddles Trainer, Marcus Hook, and Chester, producing jet fuel, gasoline, diesel, propane, and home-heating oil. Inside the borough, the old mill-village story survives in its churches and in a fire company formed after a 1912 house fire. Trainer is a compact Delaware County borough with heavy industry at its doorstep.