Editing Bird-in-Hand, Pennsylvania (section)

== History ==
The area's first inhabitants were [[Native Americans in the United States|Native American]] [[Shawnee]] and [[Susquehannock]] people.<ref name=amishnews>''Bird-in-Hand History'' at amishnews.com</ref>

The earliest European settlers of what was to become Bird-in-Hand were [[Quakers]] and [[Swiss people|Swiss]] [[Mennonites]]. James Smith was the first of the Quakers known to have settled in the area, arriving by the year 1715. William and Dorothy McNabb were pioneer landowners and the owners of the original [[Bird-in-Hand Hotel]]. The Quakers built a meetinghouse and two-story academy, which stands today, next to the present-day Bird-in-Hand fire company.<ref name=amishnews/>
[[File:Lampeter Friends Bird-in-Hand PA.JPG|thumb|center|Lampeter Friends Meetinghouse, built 1749, rebuilt 1889]]

The community was founded in 1734. The legend of the naming of Bird-in-Hand concerns the time when the Old Philadelphia Pike was [[surveying|surveyed]] between [[Lancaster, Pennsylvania|Lancaster]] and [[Philadelphia]]. According to legend, two road surveyors discussed whether they should stay at their present location or go on to the town of Lancaster. One of them supposedly said, "A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush," which means it is preferable to have a small but certain advantage than the mere potential of a greater one; and so they stayed. By 1734, road surveyors were making McNabb's hotel their headquarters rather than returning to Lancaster every day. The sign in front of the inn is known to have once "portrayed a man with a bird in his hand and a bush nearby, in which two birds were perched," and was known as the Bird-in-Hand Inn. Variations of this sign appear throughout the town today.<ref name=amishnews/>

In 1834 construction began on the {{convert|86|mi|adj=on}} [[Pennsylvania Railroad]] line between Philadelphia and [[Columbia, Pennsylvania|Columbia]]. Bird-in-Hand, featuring [[Tanning (leather)|tanneries]], [[fodder|feed mills]], and [[coal]] and [[lumber yard]]s, was the most important stop on the Lancaster-to-[[Coatesville, Pennsylvania|Coatesville]] section.<ref name=amishnews/>

In 1836 the village post office was established as the Enterprise [[Post Office]], as the village was then officially called, until the name officially changed to Bird-in-Hand in 1873.<ref name=amishnews/>

The town remained relatively unknown until a musical called ''[[Plain and Fancy]]'' opened in [[New York City|New York]] in 1955. The play was set in the village of Bird-in-Hand and is often credited as a catalyst for the boom in [[Pennsylvania Dutch Country]] [[tourism]] in the mid-twentieth century. The Plain & Fancy Restaurant opened in 1960 and is the oldest "family-style restaurant" in the area.<ref name=amishnews/> Bird-in-Hand is often named in lists of "delightfully-named towns" in [[Pennsylvania Dutchland]], along with [[Intercourse, Pennsylvania|Intercourse]], [[Blue Ball, Pennsylvania|Blue Ball]], [[Lititz, Pennsylvania|Lititz]], [[Bareville, Pennsylvania|Bareville]], [[Mount Joy, Pennsylvania|Mount Joy]] and [[Paradise, Pennsylvania|Paradise]].<ref name="Ward65">Ward's quarterly (1965) p. 109 quote: {{blockquote|...in such delightfully-named towns in Pennsylvania Dutchland as his native Mount Joy, and neighboring Lititz, Blue Ball, Bareville, Intercourse, Bird in Hand, and Paradise.}}</ref><ref name="Anderson79">Anderson (1979) p. 214 quote: {{blockquote|"...but anyone who names their towns Mount Joy, Intercourse, and Blue Ball can't be all bad. Obviously they have more on their minds than just religion."}}</ref><ref name="Museums06">Museums Association (2006) p. 61 quote: {{blockquote|Which brings us to Intercourse. You can imagine my delight when I found out that the Amish call the town of Intercourse, Pennsylvania, their home. There seems to be a lot of explanations from locals trying to pass off the name as a bastardisation of 'Enter Course' and so on, but seeing as there are other local towns called Bird In Hand, and Mount Joy, I suspect that the person responsible had a very juvenile sense of humour. The town sits in upstate Pennsylvania and is a tourist trap for anyone even remotely curious about the Amish way of life.}}</ref><ref>Rand  McNally and Company (1978) p. 52</ref><ref>Mencken (1963) p. 653 quote: {{blockquote|In the years since then many of these names have been changed to more elegant ones,<sup>2</sup> and others have vanished with the ghost towns they adorned, but not a few still hang on. Indeed, there are plenty of lovely specimens to match them in the East, in regions that were also frontier in their days, ''e.g.'', the famous cluster in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania: Bird in Hand, Bareville, Blue Ball, Mt. Joy, Intercourse and Paradise.}}</ref>

In 1968 the Smucker family opened a small 30-room [[motel]] called the Bird-in-Hand Motor Inn, with an adjacent [[coffeehouse|coffee shop]], in hopes of capitalizing on the growing tourist trade in the area. Over the years, the small coffee shop grew into the larger Bird-in-Hand Family Restaurant & [[Smorgasbord]].<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://bird-in-hand.com/our-history/|title=History of Bird-in-Hand|website=Bird-in-Hand|language=en-US|access-date=2019-01-28}}</ref>

In 1976 the Bird-in-Hand Farmers Market opened adjacent to the Bird-in-Hand Motor Inn.<ref name=amishnews/>

The [[Bird-in-Hand Hotel|Bird-in-Hand Village Inn and Suites]] was listed on the [[National Register of Historic Places]] in 1992.<ref name="nris">{{NRISref|version=2010a}}</ref>

The town is home to the [[Bank of Bird-in-Hand]], the first bank in the United States to open following the passage of the [[Dodd Frank Act]].<ref name=WSJ>{{cite news |url=https://www.wsj.com/articles/a-local-bank-in-amish-country-flourishes-amid-dearth-of-small-lenders-1427677879 |title=A Local Bank in Amish Country Flourishes Amid Dearth of Small Lenders |newspaper=The Wall Street Journal |date=March 29, 2015}}</ref>