Biohazard and Crime Scene Remediation in Rose Valley, PA

Rose Valley is a small, historic borough in Delaware County, Pennsylvania, covering just 0.73 square miles about a mile and a half south of Media, the county seat.

Before European settlement, the Great Minquas Path — a major Lenni Lenape trade route carrying furs between the Susquehanna and Delaware rivers — passed through the site of the borough, and a 1926 state historic marker topped with a beaver sculpture by Albert Laessle still commemorates it.

William Penn granted the land to the Vernon brothers in 1681, and Quaker farmers settled the area in 1682; the Randall Vernon House, built before 1700, still stands in the borough.

In the 19th century, water-powered mills along Ridley Creek drove local manufacturing, including a snuff mill built around 1789 that later operated as a paper mill and then a textile mill.

Todomorden Mansion, built in 1787, was fitted with tunnels and secret chambers that were used as part of the Underground Railroad.

Rose Valley was founded in 1901 as an Arts and Crafts community by architect William Lightfoot Price, who bought about 80 acres around the former textile mill and formed the Rose Valley Association.

Price, a follower of Henry George's Georgist economics, also co-founded Arden, Delaware, another utopian single-tax community.

The community's workshops produced furniture, ceramics, and bookbinding, and Rose Valley published its own journal, The Artsman, from 1903 to 1907.

The Hedgerow Theatre, founded in 1923 and housed in a former bobbin mill, is described as the oldest resident repertory theatre in the United States and is still active today.

The Rose Valley Historic District covers essentially the entire borough and was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2010.