Woolrich, PA

Woolrich is an unincorporated community and company town in Pine Creek Township, Clinton County, where the community and the clothing company share a name. John Rich and Daniel McCormick started the Woolrich company in 1830 at a mill on Little Plum Run; in 1834 they moved to Chatham's Run for a better water supply, bought 300 acres, and built a sawmill. The operation's first customers were lumberjacks and their families, who needed wool clothing and socks in the central Pennsylvania mountains.

The 1845 mill became the center of a settlement first called Factoryville, then Richville, and Woolrich after 1888. The original mill has changed, while Woolrich's brand history still points back to its Pennsylvania origin and its wool, blanket, sock, and military-supply traditions. Clinton County's historical society keeps the wider industrial story in view through the Heisey House Museum, rail stations, cabooses, and the Farrandsville iron furnace in nearby Lock Haven. Woolrich is a place where manufacturing history is the neighborhood pattern: waterpower, mill land, company name, and the forest economy that made the business necessary.