Gordonville, Pennsylvania is an unincorporated place or village and census-designated place in Leacock Township in easterly Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, USA.
The village is positioned about nine miles (14 km) east of the governmental center of county of Lancaster, two miles (3 km) southwest of the village of Intercourse, one mile (1.6 km) north of Paradise, and about three miles (5 km) southeast of Bird-in-Hand.
Although non-urban in character, Gordonville is at the edge of the metropolis: Amtrak Keystone Service trains pass daily through the village on runs to Lancaster and Harrisburg to the west and Philadelphia and New York City to the east.
Although there was once a train station in the center of the village, no train has officially stopped there since the 1950s.
Around 1829 territory was surveyed for the Philadelphia and Columbia Railroad, chartered in 1823 and again in 1826, to run between Philadelphia and Columbia, a burgeoning city along the Susquehanna River south of Harrisburg.
On 17 April 1834 the first long distance steam train ran though Gordonville along the new Columbia Railroad; the 60-mile (97 km) journey from Lancaster to Philadelphia took about eight and one half hours.
In 1857 the Pennsylvania Railroad purchased Pennsylvania's Main Line of Public Works, which by then encompassed the Philadelphia and Columbia Railroad and an ambitious cross-Appalachian canal project.
Abraham Lincoln spoke from his train at close-by Leaman Place-Strasburg barns junction on 22 February 1861, only one mile east of Gordonville; over 5,000 citizens were present.
Atlas described the village of Gordonville as having a populace of 413, a barns station, postal service, and express office.
By 1898 the stockyards was widened to four tracks, and by the early twentieth century 200 trains per day passed through the town.
The building of the famous (and now abandoned) low undertaking railway in the southern end of the Lancaster County in 1906 drastically reduced train traffic.
Later in the early twentieth century only six passenger trains and two freight trains actually made scheduled stops at Gordonville station each day.
There is talk of a new station to be erected at Leaman Place, a mile east of Gordonville at the Strasburg RR junction, which would serve Amtrak and SEPTA trains.
The Annual Spring Sale and Auction of the Gordonville Fire Company and Ambulance Association, held the second Saturday of March, is the biggest event of its kind on the East Coast.
Although similar mud sale auctions abound in Lancaster County in the spring, none has as many citizens attending.
Municipalities and communities of Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, United States Bart Brecknock Caernarvon Clay Colerain Conestoga Conoy Drumore Earl East Cocalico East Donegal East Drumore East Earl East Hempfield East Lampeter Eden Elizabeth Ephrata Fulton Lancaster Leacock Little Britain Manheim Manor Martic Mount Joy Paradise Penn Pequea Providence Rapho Sadsbury Salisbury Strasburg Upper Leacock Warwick West Cocalico West Donegal West Earl West Hempfield West Lampeter Bartville Bausman Beartown Bethesda Blainsport Buck Central Manor Cocalico Conewago Creswell Dillerville Drumore Elm Fertility Florin Hempfield Hinkletown Holtwood Hunsecker Kinzers Kissel Hill Leaman Place Lyndon Martic Forge Marticville Martindale Mastersonville Mechanics Grove Narvon New Danville New Providence Neffsville Nickel Mines Ninepoints Oregon Peach Bottom Pequea Rawlinsville Safe Harbor Silver Spring Spring Garden Talmage West Willow White Horse
Categories:
Populated places in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania
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