Mount Joy, Pennsylvania 2025

Mount Joy Township is in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, United States. At the 2020 census, the population was 18,273.

HISTORY

Mount Joy Township was named after a town in Ireland.

The Donut Pedaler pastry shoppes was featured on the Food Network's show "Cake Boss" in 2012.

Donut Pedaler owner, Bill Kieffer, appeared on the show with Buddy Valastro (Cake Boss) as he delivered a donut wedding cake to a couple getting married at the Hostetter's '4H Farm' in Ronks, PA.

The township was founded in 1720 by Scots-Irish settlers. At that time, the area was known as Chickies settlement. Chickies creek runs through the notch in the nearby Chickies Rock. Early settlers were subsistence farmers who tended to gristmills, woolen mills, and sawmills.

The Habecker family bought most of the area that comprises present-day Mount Joy Township in 1745.

Many of the early settlers in Mount Joy were German immigrants.

In 1842, a town square was laid out by frontier lawyer Gideon Habecker, for whom Habecker's market in Lancaster City was named. Habecker laid out lots for a town on his farm in 1842 that he called Mount Joy, after a town in Ireland. The town grew slowly: in 1850 around 10 homes, a store, a blacksmith shop, and a school stood on the 42 lots that had been sold.

The post office in Mount Joy, established in 1848, was also known as Moscow. It dropped the Moscow name in 1864.

The town's first Lutheran church was organized in 1854, with 24 members. Its first building was dedicated in 1857. In 1870, the church building was sold to the American Reformed Congregation, which burned the building in 1927. St. Mark's was the first local Lutheran church to join the Lutheran Church in America founded in 1962; the congregation dates back to 1854, when it was first formed as the German Lutheran Church.

By 1873, a line of the Pennsylvania Railroad was built in the area, with a train station located along Kaylor Road and the northern border of the township. As of 1883, the township had three stores, three hotels, a mill, and a population of roughly 190 people.

Mount Joy experienced growth beginning in the late 19th century. Mount Joy's population was 743 by 1910 and 1,037 by 1930.

The Mt. Joy Go-Kartway was located on the site of the current Turkey Hill shopping plaza, along the highway just outside the northwest town limits. Its final season was in 1977.

Mount Joy Township is known for having a fine, all-volunteer, community theater group, The Encore Players, under the leadership of Al Fifer and Jerry Myers, which began performing at the local elementary school in 1987. The group moved to Iris Nelson's dance studio and renovated a former church for live performances. It purchased and renovated the Weaver's garage on East Main Street in 2001. In 2006 it purchased the old Moose Lodge, renamed it the Encore Theater, and opened for live performances in 2008.

Mount Joy Township has grown significantly since 2000, when its population was 10,730.