Template:Wp-Lancaster, Pennsylvania-History

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Originally called Hickory Town, the city was renamed after the English city of Lancaster by native John Wright. Its symbol, the red rose, is from the House of Lancaster. Lancaster was part of the 1681 Penn's Woods Charter of William Penn, and was laid out by James Hamilton in 1734. It was incorporated as a borough in 1742 and incorporated as a city in 1818.

During the American Revolution, Lancaster served for one day as the temporary capital of the United States, seated at the Court House (built 1739, destroyed by fire in 1784 and rebuilt before relocating to current Lancaster County Courthouse in 1852; original site is now the Soldiers & Sailors Monument at Penn Square c. 1874), on September 27, 1777, after the Continental Congress fled Philadelphia, which had been captured by the British. The revolutionary government then moved still farther away to York, Pennsylvania.

Lancaster was capital of Pennsylvania from 1799 to 1812 with State Capital meeting at the Court House (built 1784 and demolished 1852 and now site of Soldiers & Sailors Monument at Penn Square),^[1] after which the capital was moved to Harrisburg.^[2]

U.S. census reports show that, from 1800 to 1900, Lancaster ranked within the nation's top 100 most populous urban areas.

In 1851, the current Lancaster County Prison - known locally as Lancaster Castle - was built in the city, but shares no visual similarities with the Lancaster Castle in England. The prison remains in use, and was used for public hangings until 1912. It replaced a 1737 structure on a different site.

The first long-distance paved road in the United States was the former Philadelphia and Lancaster Turnpike, which connected the cities of Lancaster and Philadelphia. Opened in 1795, the turnpike was paved with stone the whole way, and overlaid with gravel. The sixty-two-mile turnpike cost more than $450,000, a staggering sum for the time. The route followed what is now Pennsylvania Route 340 (also called the "Old Philadelphia Pike") from Lancaster to Thorndale and U.S. Route 30 Business and U.S. Route 30 from Thorndale to Philadelphia.

The city of Lancaster was home to several important figures in American history. Wheatland, the estate of James Buchanan, the fifteenth President of the United States, is one of Lancaster's most popular attractions. Thaddeus Stevens, considered among the most powerful members of the United States House of Representatives, lived in Lancaster as an attorney. Stevens gained notoriety as a Radical Republican and for his abolitionism. The Fulton Opera House in the city was named for Lancaster native Robert Fulton, a renaissance man who created the first fully functional steamboat. All of these individuals have had local schools named after them.

After the American Revolution, the city of Lancaster became an iron-foundry center. Two of the most common products needed by pioneers to settle the Frontier were manufactured in Lancaster: the Conestoga wagon and the Pennsylvania long rifle. The Conestoga wagon was named after the Conestoga River, which runs through the city. The innovative gunsmith William Henry lived in Lancaster and was a U.S. congressman and leader during and after the American Revolution.

In 1803, Meriwether Lewis visited Lancaster to be educated in survey methods by the well-known surveyor Andrew Ellicott. During his visit, Lewis learned to plot latitude and longitude as part of his overall training needed to lead the Lewis and Clark Expedition.

In 1879, Franklin Winfield Woolworth opened his first successful "five and dime" store in the city of Lancaster, the F. W. Woolworth Company.^[3]

Lancaster was one of the winning communities for the All-America City award in 2000.

On October 13, 2011, Lancaster's City Council officially recognized September 27 as Capital Day, a holiday recognizing Lancaster's one day as capital of the United States in 1777.