Emergency Biohazard Cleanup Near West Gap Gap, PA

Gap is a census-designated place and unincorporated community in Salisbury Township, Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, about 16 miles east of the city of Lancaster, with ZIP code 17527.

The community takes its name from its location at a low pass — a gap — through Mine Ridge, where the pass sits at an elevation of about 580 feet.

Isaac Taylor built the first house in Gap in 1747, in an area whose recorded history reaches back to visits by William Penn in the colony's early years.

Gap was once a mining center: the area had a copper mine and what were, at the time, the only nickel mines in the United States.

The Rising Sun Tavern stood on the Philadelphia-Lancaster Pike from 1792, serving travelers on what is now U.S. Route 30, until its buildings were removed around 2020 for redevelopment.

In the mid-19th century, the notorious Gap Gang raided travelers on the turnpike and kidnapped free Black people and escaped slaves to sell to slave traders in Maryland, Delaware, and Virginia, and gang members became involved in the Christiana Riot.

Gap is a highway crossroads: U.S. Route 30 passes through the community, and Gap is the terminus for four Pennsylvania state highways — Routes 41, 741, 772, and 897 — with Route 41 carrying heavy traffic toward Wilmington, Delaware.

The railroad through the pass now carries Amtrak's Keystone Service trains.

The Gap Town Clock, built in 1892, is recognized as a Lancaster County Historic Preservation Trust site.

Gap is the hometown of Anne F. Beiler, founder of the Auntie Anne's pretzel company, and of inventor William Chester Ruth.