Elizabethtown began it's first "Century of Charm" in the 1700's with the founding colonists. Our community has a rural charm of surrounding townships where farming and the tradition of working together are still upheld. We have a hometown newspaper, churches of all denominations, public and private schools, a public library, fire company and many cultural attractions for area residents and visitors to enjoy. Elizabethtown is a great place to live, work and shop.
Elizabethtown is a community of 11,887 residents located in south central Pennsylvania. Situated in scenic northwestern Lancaster County, our town is 10 miles south of Hershey and 20 miles from Harrisburg, Lancaster and York.
There are two stories about the origin of the town's name. In one version it is named after Elizabeth Reeby, wife of Michael Reeby who sold the first building lots here in about 1795. Another version has it named after the wife of Captain Barnabas Hughes who purchased a tavern here in 1750.
The officially accepted history is that, in 1753, Barnabus Hughes acquired land and laid out a town, naming it for his wife, Elizabeth. The early settlers were primarily Scots-Irish and Pennsylvania Dutch.
Elizabethtown became a borough in 1827, and a railroad was built through the area in the 1830s. The town was primarily agricultural until the early 1900s, when the Klein Chocolate Company (now part of Mars, Inc.) and several shoe factories (the last of which closed in 1979) opened. Elizabethtown College was established in 1899, and the Masonic Homes (now the Masonic Village) followed in 1911.
After World War II, Elizabethtown grew rapidly, more than doubling its population between 1950 and 2000. Homes and businesses expanded into nearby farmland, making sprawl, farmland preservation, and revitalizing the downtown area important issues.
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