Paoli grew around an inn kept in 1769 by Joshua Evans, whose father bought 500 acres (200 ha) from William Penn in 1719 near the current site of the Paoli Post Office. Evans named his inn after General Pasquale Paoli, a Corsican, after Paoli had received the 45th and final toast at a Saint Patrick's Day celebration. The inn's location on the Philadelphia and Lancaster Turnpike, about 20 miles (one day's drive for a horse-drawn wagon) from Philadelphia, contributed to its success.
Passages that mention Paoli, cut from the printed page as they were published.
The history of the Old Eagle School, Tredyffrin, in Chester County, Pennsylvania1909 · page 106Read the page →
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one hundred and twenty years, has been practically as unnoticed and unknown by any of the horde of visitors located each summer on either side of the Pennsylvania Railroad, between Bryn Mawr and Paoli, as if never existing, paradoxical as this may seem. Such visitors, regarding themselves as familiar with the neighborhood, may well be startled to find to-day on the public road, a few hurnired feet north of Strafford Station,
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.
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2 decades in the archive, from the 1920s to the 1950s. Scroll each row; tap a photo for its story.
Nothing in the archives for these yearsWeddings on Main Street, storms, parades, school pictures, the old store. If it’s in your family album, it belongs 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 (6), Wikipedia, Wikidata and Wikipedia for famous people 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.
1954
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1954