City in South Central Pennsylvania is one of the oldest inland towns in the US and is best known for being the hub of Pennsylvania's Amish Country
General Information
How to Get There
From Philadelphia (89 miles): Get on I-76 W from S Penn Square and John F Kennedy Blvd. Follow I-76 W and US-222 S to PA-23 W/E Walnut St in Lancaster. Take the PA-23 W exit from US-30 E. Continue on PA-23 W/E Walnut St. Drive to E King St in Lancaster.
Overview
Lancaster is one of the oldest inland towns in the United States and the hub of Pennsylvania's Amish Country. Today it is an arts-minded small city with a lively downtown of galleries, boutiques, restaurants, and the oldest continuously operating farmers market in the country. It was the home of President James Buchanan (whose estate, Wheatland, is here) and the abolitionist congressman Thaddeus Stevens.
Things to Do
- Central Market: the 1889 Romanesque Revival market house with Amish and Pennsylvania Dutch foods
- Gallery Row: galleries on the 100 block of North Prince Street, with a First Friday art night each month, plus the Demuth Museum and the Lancaster Museum of Art
- Fulton Opera House: the oldest continually running theater in the U.S. and a National Historic Landmark
- Stevens and Smith Historic Site: the home of Thaddeus Stevens and Lydia Hamilton Smith, with an Underground Railroad cistern
- Historic sites: Rock Ford Plantation, Bethel AME Church, and the boutique Lancaster Arts Hotel
- Shopping: Park City Center, and the Tanger and Rockvale outlets on U.S. 30
- Museums: the Hands-on House children's museum, the North Museum of Natural History, and the Heritage Center Museum
This article uses material from the Wikipedia article "Lancaster, Pennsylvania", which is released under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share-Alike License 3.0
