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Danville, Pennsylvania

1911 Encyclopedia Britannica

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A borough and the county-seat of Montour county, Pennsylvania, U.S.A., on the N. branch of the Susquehanna river, about 65 m. N. by E. of Harrisburg. Pop. (1890) 799 8; (1900) 8042, of whom 771 were foreign-born; (1906, estimate) 8066. It is served by the Delaware, Lackawanna & Western, and the Philadelphia & Reading railways, and by electric railway to Bloomsburg. The borough is built on an elevated bank of the river at the base of Montour Ridge, where the narrow valley appears to be shut in on every side by hills; the river is spanned by a steel bridge, built in 1905. Iron, coal and limestone abound in the vicinity, and the borough has large manufactories of stoves and furnaces, and of iron and steel, in one of which in 1845 a "T"-rail, probably the first in America, was rolled. It is the seat of a state hospital for the insane (established in 1868). The water-works and electric light plant are owned and operated by the municipality. A settlement was four led here about 1776 by Captain William Montgomery and his son Daniel; and a town was laid out in 1792 and called Dan's Town until the present name was adopted a few years later. Growth was slow until the discovery of iron ore on Montour Ridge, followed in 1832 by the completion of the N. branch of the Pennsylvania Canal, which runs through the centre of the borough. Danville was incorporated in 1849.