Leiper Railway
Near Wilmington, Pennsylvania
Crossing the highway at this point was the Leiper Railway, built between eighteen oh nine and eighteen ten by Thomas Leiper. It is often described as the first permanent operating railway in America. The line was built to haul stone from quarries on Crum Creek to the nearest landing, a distance of about three quarters of a mile.
Horse-drawn cars moved the stone along wooden rails. Though modest in scale, the Leiper Railway foreshadowed the vast railroad network that would transform the United States over the following half century.
