York Water Company, America's Oldest Utility
Near York, Pennsylvania
The building on East Market Street in York is the home of the oldest investor-owned utility in the United States. In eighteen sixteen, a group of York residents came together to solve two urgent problems: the town's wooden buildings were vulnerable to fire, and residents were drinking water of uncertain quality from shallow wells and streams.
The company they formed that year has been in continuous operation ever since, making it also York's oldest business. As a publicly traded company it has paid dividends to shareholders without interruption since eighteen sixteen, a streak the company says is the longest of any American company. What began as a practical solution to fire and disease prevention became, over two centuries, a quiet demonstration that a public-private utility can outlast wars, depressions, and everything else the country has thrown at it.
