DANVILLE

Less than three miles from Exit 33 of Interstate 80, Danville is found on the north shore of the Susquehanna River in Central Pennsylvania.  Montour Ridge, of the Bald Eagle Mountain Range, overlooks this town which was founded by Daniel Montgomery as a trading settlement near the end of the eighteenth century. 

Just as the Delaware and Iroquois before them, new settlers found the location favorable.   Mountains gave shelter, there was a generous supply of   timber for buildings, and an abundance of good water, and gently rolling land for crops. A gap through the mountains, existing wilderness trails and the  river provided transportation routes. Even today Danville is only a few hours travel from a large part of the eastern megalopolis of North America.

Early on the character of the village was set when iron ore was discovered in the ridge north of town. At the time, iron was literally the backbone for the growth of the nation.To be able to produce iron locally was a great advantage.   For more than a Century, which began in the 1830's and ended after World War II, Danville was an "Iron Town".  Immigrants from all of Europe came to work in Danville's mines and mills.  Blast furnaces, rolling mills, iron foundries, stove works, nail mills, puddling furnaces and defense plants operated around the clock to provide our nation with all sorts of hardware.  Such was the influence of this community's ironworks, that the high school's sports teams became known as the "Ironmen".

Times have changed and there is just one Danville factory, TRW,   which now fabricates metal.  In the place of iron, the health care industry has made it's mark.  An important pharmaceutical company, Merck, has one of it's key plants located across the Susquehanna River from Danville.  The Geisinger Health System opened it's facilities here in 1915. The system, based in Danville, employees over 7,000 people including well over 700 physicians.  A recent merger with the Hershey Medical Center has doubled these numbers and given birth to the Penn State Geisinger Health System.  The Danville based Penn State Geisinger Health Plan employees 2,000 and is the largest rural "not for profit" HMO in the country.