The Boroughs and Villages

The Boroughs and their incorporation dates:

Camp Hill, 1885

Lemoyne, 1905

Wormleysburg, 1908

West Fairview, 1910

The Villages:

Enola got its name from Francis and Wesley Miller.  Wesley sold about 2 acres of land to the Northern Central Railroad to be used as a flag station. He had a chance to name the station and named it after their four-year-old daughter, Enola Francis Miller.   

In the fall of 1902 the Pennsylvania Railroad made the decision to build a classification yard “between Marysville and West Fairview.” In 1903 their agent, The Manor Realty Co. after purchasing 743 acres, officially opened the Yards in January 1905. Of the 743 acres, the Enola Realty Co. bought 104 acres for $26,500. This would officially become known as Enola (our current North Enola).

The Realty Company went on to build more than 220 homes which they rented or sold to families coming to our village looking for employment.

South Enola grew all most as rapidly North Enola.  Some of the landowners were Mann, Bretz, Darr, Rupley, Pyne (Pine Street) and Addams (Adams Street).

West Enola also grew with the boom of the Enola Yards.  The largest landowner of that time was Britton; other large landowners were Lantz and Renninger.

Summerdale got its name from Harry Horner.  In March 1909, he purchased 115 acres and laid out the town of Summerdale.  By June 1910, he completed a Dance Hall (the soda fountain alone cost $1,500).  During the hot summer months, people would travel by trolley from Harrisburg to this village.  Its location, at the foot of the Blue Mountains, certainly made it a Summer Dale.

Overview got its name from D. S. Seitz.  He laid out the village in 1910.  Much of Overview became displaced when Route 81 was built in 1972.

Possum Hollow, we are told, was so named after it was discovered that a possum had made her home in a hollow tree. Surprisingly the village is older than Enola, Summerdale, or Overview. Its most famous citizen was Mrs. Catherine Kreitzer. In June 1955, she won $32,000 on “The $64,000 Question” television show. Seventy Million viewers watched her in the greatest jackpot ever given out on a radio or television program at that time. Possum Hollow is also home of the Pine Hill Arboretum.

West Fairview, the former borough, is by far the oldest of our villages. Abraham Neidig Sr., laid out the town in 1816. By 1852 it had a post office and fifteen houses and by 1879 it had more than three hundred homes, four schools, three churches, one hotel and the Harrisburg Nail Works that employed 350 people.  Until 1910, it was the East Pennsboro School District.

West Fairview had several “claims to fame.”  Those being the first (and most likely the only) female football coach, and for the period, the largest nail factory in the United States.

History records time and time again the residents of this village gathering yearly. The mode of transportation, railroads and trolleys, has changed over the decades, but the annual gathering continues.

East Pennsboro is proud of its many villages, each with their own identity and history.