The Mifflin post office opened in 1904, the earliest record of the town by name. Another post office, Patterson (1852), opened inside today’s town and later closed.
First census: 885 in 19102020 census: 530122 years
Founding year: the first Mifflin post office (Blevins & Helbock, CC0).The full story ↓
What stands out about Mifflin’s past
Read from the archive, the National Register and the record. The page puts what stands out first.
Mifflin was founded as the town of Patterson. At one time, Mifflin, as well as the small community of Denholm lying directly north of the town, was an important stop along the Pennsylvania Railroad. The railroad tracks still pass through the town, but they are now owned by the Norfolk Southern Railway.
The Pennsylvania Railroad depot still stands in Mifflin, although it has long been abandoned. Mifflin is named after Thomas Mifflin, the first Governor of Pennsylvania.
Passages that mention Mifflin, cut from the printed page as they were published.
History of that part of the Susquehanna and Juniata valleys, embraced in the counties of Mifflin, Juniata, Perry, Union and Snyder, in the commonwealth of Pennsylvania ...1886 · page 455Read the page →
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"Ninth, That your Petitioners believe, as to numbers of those above and below the Narrows, very little difference exists, but claim the majority, and contend the town of Mifflin to be much more central and convenient than Lewistown, taking into view the local situation of Mifflin County as it at present stands ; al.so a further and very material accommodation of Greenwood township, in Cumberland, Mahantango and
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History of that part of the Susquehanna and Juniata valleys, embraced in the counties of Mifflin, Juniata, Perry, Union and Snyder, in the commonwealth of Pennsylvania ...1886 · page 548Read the page →
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Maitland is a station on the Mifflin and Centre Railroad, about five miles from Lewistown and on Jack's Creek. It contains a postoffice, store, depot, school-house and a few dwellings. A short distance from it, to the west, is the grist-mill of Henry Stine, which, in 17t)8, was the property of John Waggoner, who also was running a saw-mill. This prop-
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various and appropriate departments of this work, and the organization of Mifflin, referred to in the beginning. As stated in another page the countj' of Mifflin was erected out of Cumberland, on the 19th of September, 1789. When tlie attempt was made to run the boundary line between Mifflin and Huntingdon a dispute arose between a strip of territory that was claimed by both. The sheriff of Huntingdon county in going to serve writs that had been placed in his hands to serve on the disputed territory was confronted by a part}^
Text read by machine from the scan; it may contain errors.
Scans and text from the Internet Archive. Books published in 1930 or earlier, which are in the public domain.
Timeline
Mifflin, 1852 to 1934
Woven from the archive, old maps, post office records, the National Register and the people born here.
Founding dates: Wikidata, Wikipedia, the U.S. post office records of Blevins & Helbock (CC0) and the Census. Homes by year built: Census ACS 2020–24. National Register of Historic Places: National Park Service (list of May 22, 2026). Old photos, postcards and papers: Wikimedia Commons, the Library of Congress and other public archives, credited on each item’s page. Maps: U.S. Geological Survey historical topographic maps (via Esri) and Sanborn fire-insurance maps (Library of Congress). History text and census tables: Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0). Places that used to be: USGS Geographic Names Information System (2021). How TownRatings grades history →
From Wikimedia Commons (5), Wikipedia, U.S. Geological Survey historical maps, U.S. Census counts (via Wikipedia), the US Post Offices dataset (Blevins & Helbock), the USGS Geographic Names Information System and old county and town histories (Internet Archive). Archive images are copied here with their credits and licenses, shown on each photo’s page. Refreshed monthly.
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