Mechanicsburg
Near Harrisburg, Pennsylvania
The town's name is literal. Wagon mechanics began setting up repair shops along Trindle Road here in the early nineteenth century, servicing the endless stream of Conestoga wagons hauling goods west across Pennsylvania. The settlement went by several nicknames before the name caught on, including Drytown, for its scarce water supply, and Pinchgut, a German-inflected insult for tiny villages with little to offer.
On April twelfth, eighteen twenty-eight, the Pennsylvania Assembly incorporated it as the Borough of Mechanicsburg. The wagon trade faded with the railroads, but the borough grew as a supply hub west of Harrisburg and remains one of Cumberland County's larger communities today.
