24/7 Trauma and Biohazard Cleanup in Middletown, PA

Middletown is a borough in Dauphin County and, as its state historical marker proclaims, the oldest town in the county, laid out in 1755 by George Fisher, a Quaker settler.

Middletown took its name from its location midway between Lancaster and Carlisle along colonial travel routes, and it was incorporated as a borough in 1828.

In the 19th century Middletown was an important port at the junction of the Pennsylvania and Union Canals, with early flour, lumber, and iron industries, and during the Revolutionary War it had served as an American army supply depot and boat-building center.

The 2020 census counted 9,533 people in Middletown, and Census Bureau figures show about 4,670 households in the borough, averaging only about 2 people per household.

Middletown sits on the east bank of the Susquehanna River at the mouth of Swatara Creek, about 10 miles southeast of Harrisburg.

Middletown is forever linked to the Three Mile Island nuclear plant in the Susquehanna River just south of town, where a partial meltdown in Unit 2 on March 28, 1979 became the worst commercial nuclear accident in United States history.

Penn State Harrisburg, the Pennsylvania State University campus with more than 5,000 students, is located in Middletown and gives the old canal town a college-town energy.

Middletown students attend the Middletown Area School District, the district whose schools were among the 23 in the Susquehanna Valley closed briefly during the 1979 Three Mile Island emergency.

Middletown's founder George Fisher also provided the ground for St. Peter's Lutheran Church, whose cornerstone was laid in 1767 and which was dedicated in 1769 by Henry Melchior Muhlenberg, the patriarch of American Lutheranism.