Milton Borough

Northumberland County, Pennsylvania

   

Milton Borough Hall is located at 2 Filbert Street, Milton PA 17847.
Phone: 570‑742‑8759.

Beginnings [1]

Milton (473 alt.,8,582 [‡] pop.), originally Milltown, is on the east bank of the Susquehanna's West Branch, at the mouth of Limestone Run. Houses of brick from local clay deposits face the tree-lined main street; the town has a compact business district. The river, flowing past the backyards of many Milton dwellings, is dotted with island picnic grounds. A number of floodlines, painted on buildings, six feet above street level, represent the high point of the 1936 flood. Metal products plants, textile products mills, and a furniture factory employ more than 2,000. On the site of the present post office, near the town center, Marcus Hulings, Jr., agent for the Susquehanna Land Company, erected a log tavern in 1779. The community was incorporated as a borough in 1817.

South of Milton the route, passing summer cottages and bungalows, closely parallels the West Branch of the Susquehanna. Susquehanna, a corruption of two Indian words (sisku: mud; and hanne:river), probably came into use when an Indian's comment on the stream's muddy waters after a storm was mistaken for the name. The Susquehanna River was legally declared a 'public highway' in 1771, but only vessels of shallow draft could successfully navigate it. Attempts at steam navigation during the second and third decades of the nineteenth century met with failure.

The 2000 U.S. Census reported a population of 6,650.

  1. Writers Project, Works Project Administration, Pennsylvania, A Guide to the Keystone State, 1940, Federal Works Agency, John M. Carmody, Administrator

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