Springdale · York, Pennsylvania
Historic homes,
tall trees, and a short
walk to downtown
Springdale is a ten-block neighborhood of distinctive historic homes on large city lots, half a mile from Downtown York.
Explore Springdale- Historic architecture
- Tree-lined streets
- Minutes from downtown York
The character of Springdale
Character takes time.
Streets shaped by generations of care. An invitation to add something of your own.
Get to know the neighborhood
Our history · Since 1823
It begins with a summer house and seven springs.
In 1823 Charles A. Barnitz, a York attorney who later served in Congress, bought ten acres east of the York & Baltimore Turnpike for a summer house. Family tradition says it was named for the seven springs on the land, and that Henry Clay, Daniel Webster, and Davy Crockett came to visit. The Lewis and Hersh families grew it into Springdale Farms, said at its height to cover some 400 acres; in the 1920s it was platted into the streets you can walk today, and built house by individual house through the 1940s.
Drawing by Ottmar Carli for The Neighborhood of Springdale (1982).
- 1823
Ten acres, a summer house, and, as the story goes, seven springs.
- c. 1888
Grier Hersh builds a carriage house. It still stands, the oldest of the district’s historic buildings.
- 1894
York County’s first golf course is laid out on the estate: nine holes, par 34.
- 2001
Listed on the National Register of Historic Places: about 55 acres and nearly 200 historic buildings.
Life here
Traditions, kept.
A voluntary association, organized in 1977, runs the Block Party, plants the circles, watches traffic and zoning, and welcomes every new household with a packet and a copy of the neighborhood history.
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