Crime Scene & Biohazard Cleanup Near North Berwick Berwick, PA

Berwick is a borough in Columbia County on the north bank of the Susquehanna River, about 28 miles southwest of Wilkes-Barre.

Berwick was founded in 1786 by Evan Owen, a Welsh Quaker surveyor who named it after Berwick-upon-Tweed in England; the area was first settled in 1769 and the borough was incorporated in 1818.

The 2020 census counted 10,327 people in Berwick, living in about 4,643 households.

Berwick consolidated with the neighboring borough of West Berwick in 1917, and its population peaked at 14,010 in 1950.

During World War II, Berwick's American Car & Foundry plant built more than 15,000 Stuart tanks, making the borough one of America's top tank-producing communities, a legacy preserved by the Stuart Tank Memorial Museum in town.

American Car & Foundry's Berwick plant also built the world's first all-steel passenger car for the New York City subway in 1904.

Berwick is the hometown of Wise Foods, the snack company famous for Wise potato chips, founded by Berwick native Earl Wise in the first half of the twentieth century.

Berwick is one of the two principal communities of the Bloomsburg-Berwick metropolitan area, and the Berwick Area School District serves students in both Columbia and Luzerne counties.

The Pennsylvania Canal's North Branch Division once ran along the river at Berwick, where a lock raised or lowered canal boats by 8.48 feet.

Berwick's urban area straddles the county line, with the borough in Columbia County and East Berwick directly across the line in Luzerne County.