Editing Swarthmore, Pennsylvania (section)

==History==
[[File:Presby Church in Swarthmore.jpg|thumb|left|Presbyterian Church, designed by [[William Lightfoot Price]], about 1897]]
Originally, the area belonged to the [[Lenape]] people. It was settled in the late 1600s by [[Quakers]] after [[William Penn]] granted them the land. By the early 1800s, it was still mainly farmland, and was known as Westdale in honor of local artist [[Benjamin West]]. It was part of [[Springfield Township, Delaware County, Pennsylvania|Springfield Township]], but the area began to become a distinct town after [[Swarthmore College]] was founded in 1864. The advent of passenger rail service from [[Philadelphia]] in the 1880s greatly enhanced the desirability of the borough as a [[commuter suburb]], and the borough was incorporated in 1893. <ref>{{cite web | url=http://www.swarthmorepa.org/913/History | title=History &#124; Swarthmore Borough, PA - Official Website }}</ref>

About one third of the borough's land area consists of the Swarthmore College campus. Many of the streets in the southern half of town are named for eastern colleges, and much of the borough's housing stock dates from the Victorian period through the 1920s.
The [[Ogden House (Swarthmore, Pennsylvania)|Ogden House]] and [[Benjamin West Birthplace]] are listed on the [[National Register of Historic Places]].<ref name="nris">{{NRISref|version=2010a}}</ref>