Editing Doylestown, Pennsylvania (section)

== History ==
[[File:Fountain House 2010.JPG|thumb|[[The Fountain House (Doylestown, Pennsylvania)|The Fountain House]], at the corner of State and Main Streets, was built in 1758 and is on the [[National Register of Historic Places]].]]
[[File:Bucks Courthouse.JPG|thumb|The Bucks County Administration Building]]
[[File:Pugh Dungan Hs BucksCo PA.jpg|thumb|[[Pugh Dungan House]]]]
[[File:County Cinema Dtown.JPG|thumb|[[Doylestown Historic District]]]]
[[File:Main Street NB approaching Court Street Doylestown.jpg|thumb|Main Street]]
Like most of eastern [[Pennsylvania]], present-day Doylestown was inhabited by the [[Lenape]] Indian tribe prior to European settlement of the region.

===18th century===
In March 1745, William Doyle, an [[Irish people|Irish]] settler, obtained a license to build a tavern, then known as [[:File:History of Doylestown, old and new - from its settlement to the close of the nineteenth century, 1745-1900 (1904) (14801977513).jpg|William Doyle's Tavern]], on what is now the northwest corner of Dyers Road and Coryell's Ferry Road at present-day Main and State Streets. The tavern's strategic location at the junction of present-day [[U.S. Route 202 in Pennsylvania|U.S. Route 202]], which links [[Norristown, Pennsylvania|Norristown]] and [[New Hope, Pennsylvania|New Hope]], and [[Pennsylvania Route 611]], which links [[Philadelphia]] and [[Easton, Pennsylvania|Easton]], contributed to Doylestown's early growth. 

A second inn, named Sign of the Ship, was established in 1774, built diagonally across from the Doyle Tavern. Samuel Flack was innkeeper in 1778.<ref name="PlaceNamesDoylestown"/>

===19th century===
On January 1, 1802, a post office was established in present-day Doylestown. Charles Stewart, the first postmaster, carried letters to recipients in the bell-shaped crown of his high beaver hat as he walked about the village. When Stewart died on February 7, 1804, his son-in-law Enoch Harvey became the next postmaster. On October 9, 1804 Harvey advertised in the ''Pennsylvania Correspondent'', published in Doylestown, of a list of letters remaining in the post office for Wm. R. Hanna, Esq., Newtown; Doct. Felix Robertson, Bucks County; Robert Wehir, Shamony, Bucks County; Robert A. Farmer, Esq., Birdsborough; Israel Childs, Buckingham.<ref name="PlaceNamesDoylestown"/>

In 1815, the first church was erected; it was followed by the construction of a succession of churches for various congregations throughout the 19th century.<ref name="PlaceNamesDoylestown">MacReynolds, George, ''Place Names in Bucks County, Pennsylvania'', Doylestown, Bucks County Historical Society, Doylestown, PA, 1942, Doylestown Borough.</ref>

As the population of Central and Upper Bucks County grew throughout the 18th and into the 19th century, discontent developed with the county seat's location in [[Newtown, Bucks County, Pennsylvania|Newtown]], where it had been since 1725. Eight petitions with a total of 184 signers were submitted to the General Assembly, some as early as 1784, requesting the move of the county seat to Doylestown. Among the signers were Andrew Armstrong, John Armstrong, John Davis, Andrew Denison, Jesse Fell, Joseph Fell, John Ingham (of Ingham Springs), Michael Frederick Kolb, Zebulon M. Pike (of Lumberton), Samuel Preston, Robert Shewell, Walter Shewell, and Fulkerd Sebring.<ref name="PlaceNamesDoylestown"/> 

The [[Pennsylvania General Assembly]] approved the move by an Act on February 28, 1810, and the first Court session was opened on May 11, 1813. An outgrowth of Doylestown's new courthouse was the development of "lawyers row", a collection of [[Federal architecture|Federal-style]] offices. One positive consequence of early 19th-century investment in the new county seat was organized fire protection, which began in 1825 with the Doylestown Fire Engine Company.

A bill to erect Doylestown into a borough was introduced into Legislature in February 1830, but failed, as well as a second attempt in the session of 1832. "An Act to erect the Village of Doylestown, in the County of Bucks, into a Borough" was passed and signed into law by Governor [[Joseph Ritner]] on April 16, 1838.<ref name="PlaceNamesDoylestown"/>

An electric telegraph station was built in 1846, and the [[North Pennsylvania Railroad]] completed a branch to Doylestown in 1856. The first gas lights were introduced in 1854. Because of the town's relatively high elevation and a lack of strong water power, substantial industrial development never occurred and Doylestown evolved to have a professional and residential character.<ref name="PlaceNamesDoylestown"/>

During the mid-19th century, several large tracts located east of the courthouse area were subdivided into neighborhoods. The next significant wave of development occurred after the [[American Civil War|Civil War]], when the {{convert|30|acre|ha|adj=on}} Magill property to the southwest of the town's core was subdivided for residential lots.{{cn|date=November 2023}}

In 1869, Doylestown established a water works. The first telephone line arrived in 1878, the same year that a new courthouse was erected.  1897 saw the first of several trolley lines connecting Doylestown with [[Willow Grove, Pennsylvania|Willow Grove]], Newtown, and Easton. A private sewer system and treatment plant were authorized in 1903. The borough took over and expanded sewer service to about three-quarters of the town in 1921.{{cn|date=November 2023}}

===20th century===
In the early 20th century, Doylestown became best known to the outside world through the "Tools of the Nation-Maker" museum of the [[Bucks County Historical Society]]. [[Henry Chapman Mercer]] constructed the reinforced concrete building in 1916 to house his collection of mechanical tools and utensils. Upon his death in 1930, Mercer also left his similarly constructed home [[Fonthill (house)|Fonthill]] and adjacent [[Moravian Pottery and Tile Works]], to be operated as a museum. The home was left on the condition that his housekeeper be allowed to live there for the rest of her life. She lived there and gave tours until the mid-1970s.{{cn|date=November 2023}}

In 1916, Doylestown Country Club was established and still operates a private golf course and caddy program.<ref>{{cite web| url = http://www.doylestowncountryclub.com| title = Home - Doylestown Country Club - Doylestown, PA}}</ref>

By 1931, the advent of the automobile and improved highway service had put the last trolley line out of business as Doylestonians used the automobile as the primary means of travel within the region. The [[Great Depression]] took its toll on Doylestown; many grand old houses constructed a century earlier fell into disrepair. During the 1930s, the borough also expanded its land area to the north by admission of the tract known as the Doylestown Annex.{{cn|date=November 2023}}

In the decade following [[World War II]], however, Doylestown's business community boomed. During the 1940s, streets were paved for the first time in two decades and parking meters were introduced downtown in 1948. However, the postwar housing boom did not begin in earnest until the 1950s, when 550 new homes were built. The housing boom continued into the 1960s and 1970s, as more than 1,600 new homes were built during those decades and the borough's population grew from 5,917 in 1960 to 8,717 in 1980.{{cn|date=November 2023}}

By the 1960s, the competition presented by the emergence of shopping malls proved detrimental to many local Doylestown businesses, resulting in vacant buildings and dilapidated storefronts. Bucks County Redevelopment Authority responded with a federal urban renewal scheme that called for the demolition of 27 historic buildings.{{cn|date=February 2024}} The local business community objected to such wholesale clearance and responded with its own plan called Operation '64, the Doylestown Plan for Self-Help Downtown Renewal.{{cn|date=February 2024}} This private initiative was successful in saving Doylestown's old buildings and historic character, while improving business at the same time. One historic landmark that could not be saved was the 80-year-old courthouse and clock tower, which was replaced by the present county complex in the early 1960s.{{cn|date=February 2024}}

By the end of the 1980s, the downtown business district was again showing the toll of massive new competition from the latest wave of suburban shopping centers, as well as the recession that hit hardest in the northeastern states.{{cn|date=February 2024}} In response, the borough council established a volunteer group of civic-minded representatives from business organizations, government, and the residential community to begin formulating plans for the downtown area in 1992. This effort resulted in streetscape improvements composed of cast iron street lamps and brick pavers, façade improvements and other beautification efforts, and the establishment of a Main Street Manager Program.{{cn|date=November 2023}}

In the 1990s, the downtown area rebuilt itself largely by turning to an out-of-town audience. Doylestown had long been respected as a bucolic tourist destination. The gentry of [[Philadelphia]] and [[New York City]], including figures associated with theater and literary in [[Manhattan]], maintained country estates in the area and often summered in Doylestown. The Mercer Museum, Moravian Pottery and Tile Works, and the local [[National Shrine of Our Lady of Czestochowa]] brought a regular stream of short-term visitors through the area as well.{{cn|date=November 2023}}

With charitable support, the County Theater, an [[art-deco]]-styled building, was restored and reopened showing art-house fare, and a new main library and art museum were built around the ruins of the old stone jail, across the street from the Mercer Museum. Doylestown also was designated an official resort town and was exempted from liquor license caps.<ref>{{cite web| url = https://www.bizjournals.com/pittsburgh/stories/2000/10/02/daily15.html| url-status = dead| archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20040524131639/http://www.bizjournals.com/pittsburgh/stories/2000/10/02/daily15.html| archive-date = 2004-05-24| title = Pa. liquor license system may change - 2000-10-05 - Pittsburgh Business Times}}</ref> Empty commercial spaces soon began to be replaced with dense and vibrant bars and restaurants, contributing to a lively nightlife in Doylestown.

As the Philadelphia metropolitan area expanded from southern into central Bucks County, the fields and farms of the communities around Doylestown quickly began to sprout housing developments. This development brought thousands of people to the area, but the neighborhoods created often lacked longstanding institutions or discernible centers. Doylestown, more centrally located than the Delaware River border town of [[New Hope, Pennsylvania|New Hope]], which had traditionally served this function, was able to position itself as the regional center of culture and nightlife.{{cn|date=November 2023}}

Archival collection and community programming are two functions of the Doylestown Historical Society, established in 1995, whose mission is "to commemorate and preserve the history of Doylestown so that its people, places and events may long be remembered."{{cn|date=November 2023}}

The [[Doylestown Historic District]], [[Pugh Dungan House]], [[Fonthill (house)|Fonthill]], [[The Fountain House (Doylestown, Pennsylvania)|Fountain House]], [[Oscar Hammerstein II Farm]], [[James-Lorah House]], [[Mercer Museum]], [[Moravian Pottery and Tile Works]], and [[Shaw Historic District, Doylestown, Pennsylvania|Shaw Historic District]] are listed on the [[National Register of Historic Places]].<ref name="nris">{{NRISref|version=2010a}}</ref>