Mount Joy, Pennsylvania

Borough of Mount Joy
Mount Joy Post Office
Location of Mount Joy in Lancaster County
Borough of Mount Joy Location of Mount Joy in Pennsylvania
Coordinates: 40°06′36″N 76°30′40″W / 40.11000°N 76.51111°WCoordinates: 40°06′36″N 76°30′40″W / 40.11000°N 76.51111°W
Country	United States
State	Pennsylvania
County	Lancaster
Area
• Total	2.3 sq mi (6 km^2)
• Land	2.3 sq mi (6 km^2)
• Water	0.0 sq mi (0 km^2)
Elevation	371 ft (113 m)
Population (2010)
• Total	7,410
• Density	3,200/sq mi (1,200/km^2)
Time zone	EST (UTC-5)
• Summer (DST)	EDT (UTC-4)
ZIP code	17552
Area code(s)	717
Website	http://www.mountjoyborough.com

Mount Joy is a borough in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, United States. The population was 7,410 at the 2010 census.

Name and origin

Mount Joy is often named in lists of "delightfully-named towns" in Pennsylvania Dutch Country, along with Intercourse, Blue Ball, Lititz, Bareville, Bird-in-Hand and Paradise.^{[1][2][3][4][5]}

The name is often shortened to Mt Joy, as in Mencken (1963),^[5] The town was named after the ship the early Irish settlers came to America on; "Mount Joy".^[6]

Wells Fargo Bank on Main Street

General information

• ZIP code: 17552
• Area code: 717
• Local phone codes: 492, 653, 928

Geography

Mount Joy is located at 40°6′36″N 76°30′40″W / 40.11000°N 76.51111°W (40.109895, -76.510977).^[7]

According to the United States Census Bureau, the borough has a total area of 2.3 square miles (6.1 km²), all of it land. It is considered to be part of the Susquenanna Valley.

Demographics

Historical population
Census	Pop.		%±
1860	1,729		—
1870	1,896		9.7%
1880	2,058		8.5%
1890	1,848		−10.2%
1900	2,018		9.2%
1910	2,166		7.3%
1920	2,192		1.2%
1930	2,716		23.9%
1940	2,855		5.1%
1950	3,006		5.3%
1960	3,292		9.5%
1970	5,041		53.1%
1980	5,680		12.7%
1990	6,398		12.6%
2000	6,765		5.7%
2010	7,410		9.5%
Est. 2014	8,008	[8]	8.1%
Sources:[9][10][11][11]

The 2010 United States Census reports the following demographics for Mount Joy Borough:^[12]

• Total population: 7,410
• Male: 3,624
• Female: 3,786
• Hispanic or Latino: 549
• White: 6,809
• African American: 187
• Asian: 58
• American Indian and Alaska Native: 20
• Identified by two or more: 170

Public services

• The Milanof-Schock Library
• Borough of Mount Joy
• Mount Joy Township
• Fire Department of Mount Joy
• Donegal School District

Museums and historic sites

• Bube's Brewery and Central Hotel
• Donegal Mills Plantation
• George Brown's Sons Cotton and Woolen Mill
• Nissly Swiss Chocolate Company

Notable people

• David Salsbery Fry, Metropolitan Opera bass.^[13]
• Clarence Charles Newcomer, United States federal judge.^[14]

Notes

1. Ward's quarterly (1965) p.109 quote:

   ...in such delightfully-named towns in Pennsylvania Dutchland as his native Mount Joy, and neighboring Lititz, Blue Ball, Bareville, Intercourse, Bird in Hand, and Paradise.

2. Anderson (1979) p.214 quote:

   "...but anyone who names their towns Mount Joy, Intercourse, and Blue Ball can't be all bad. Obviously they have more on their minds than just religion."

3. Museums Association (2006) p.61 quote:

   Which brings us to Intercourse. You can imagine my delight when I found out that the Amish call the town of Intercourse, Pennsylvania, their home. There seems to be a lot of explanations from locals trying to pass off the name as a bastardisation of 'Enter Course' and so on, but seeing as there are other local towns called Blue Ball, Bird In Hand, and Mount Joy, I suspect that the person responsible had a very juvenile sense of humour. The town sits in upstate Pennsylvania and is a tourist trap for anyone even remotely curious about the Amish way of life.

4. Rand McNally and Company (1978) p.52
5. Mencken (1963) p.653 quote:

   In the years since then many of these names have been changed to more elegant ones,² and others have vanished with the ghost towns they adorned, but not a few still hang on. Indeed, there are plenty of lovely specimens to match them in the East, in regions that were also frontier in their days, e.g., the famous cluster in Lancaster county, Pennsylvania: Bird in Hand, Bareville, Blue Ball, Mt. Joy, Intercourse and Paradise.

6. "Early history". Reading Eagle. Jun 9, 1896. p. 25. Retrieved 18 October 2015.
7. "US Gazetteer files: 2010, 2000, and 1990". United States Census Bureau. 2011-02-12. Retrieved 2011-04-23.
8. "Annual Estimates of the Resident Population for Incorporated Places: April 1, 2010 to July 1, 2014". Retrieved June 4, 2015.
9. "Census of Population and Housing". U.S. Census Bureau. Retrieved 11 December 2013.
10. "American FactFinder". United States Census Bureau. Retrieved 2008-01-31.
11. "Incorporated Places and Minor Civil Divisions Datasets: Subcounty Resident Population Estimates: April 1, 2010 to July 1, 2012". Population Estimates. U.S. Census Bureau. Retrieved 11 December 2013.
12. 2010 United States Census Community Data
13. "The Metropolitan Opera 14-15 Season Book" (PDF). The Metropolitan Opera. Retrieved 1 September 2015. David Salsbery Fry, Bass (Mount Joy, Pennsylvania)
14. Clarence Charles Newcomer at the Biographical Directory of Federal Judges, a public domain publication of the Federal Judicial Center.

References

• Anderson, William Charles (1979) Home sweet home has wheels: or, Please don't tailgate the real estate
• Mencken, Henry Louis and McDavid, Raven Ioor (1963) The American language: an inquiry into the development of English in the United States, Volume 1
• Museums Association (2006) The Museums journal, Volume 106, Issues 1-6, Indexes to papers read before the Museums Association, 1890–1909. Compiled by Charles Madeley.
• Rand McNally and Company (1978) Vacation & travel guide
• Ward's quarterly, Volume 1, 1965

External links

• Borough of Mount Joy