Peach Bottom Slate quarries 1969 1VCFE00020052

Peach Bottom is an unincorporated village in Fulton Township, Lancaster County, in the state of

Pennsylvania Pennsylvania, officially the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, is a U.S. state, state spanning the Mid-Atlantic (United States), Mid-Atlantic, Northeastern United States, Northeastern, Appalachian, and Great Lakes region, Great Lakes regions o ...

, United States. It lies on the east bank of the

Susquehanna River The Susquehanna River ( ; Unami language, Lenape: ) is a major river located in the Mid-Atlantic (United States), Mid-Atlantic region of the United States, crossing three lower Northeastern United States, Northeast states (New York, Pennsylvani ...

. The original town of Peach Bottom was located across the river in York County. With the construction of the Columbia and Port Deposit Railroad up the east side of the Susquehanna (1866–1868), a station was built on the Lancaster County side, near the mouth of Peters Creek, from which Peach Bottom could be reached by ferry. This was known as Peach Bottom Station. The Peach Bottom Railway had terminals at both Peach Bottom and Peach Bottom Station; a planned bridge to connect them was never built. The line on the east side became the Lancaster, Oxford and Southern Railroad and on the west side, the

Maryland and Pennsylvania Railroad The Maryland and Pennsylvania Railroad , colloquially known as the "Ma and Pa", was an American short-line railroad between York, Pennsylvania, York and Hanover, Pennsylvania, formerly operating passenger and freight trains on its original line be ...

. When the

Conowingo Dam The Conowingo Dam (also Conowingo Hydroelectric Plant, Conowingo Hydroelectric Station) is a large hydroelectric dam in the lower Susquehanna River near the town of Conowingo, Maryland, Conowingo, Maryland. The medium-height, masonry gravity dam ...

was built (1926–1928), the Columbia and Port Deposit was relocated higher up the hillside, and both Peach Bottom and Peach Bottom Station were submerged. The present village was built a short distance southeast of the site of Peach Bottom Station. The post office for the area (ZIP code 17563) is named "Peach Bottom" but is located on Pennsylvania Route 272 just north of

Wakefield Wakefield is a cathedral city in West Yorkshire, England located on the River Calder. The city had a population of 109,766 in the 2021 census, up from 99,251 in the 2011 census. The city is the administrative centre of the wider Metropolit ...

. The Peach Bottom Nuclear Generating Station lies across the river, on the site of the original town. In 2016, the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) estimated that a major fire at the spent fuel pool at the Peach Bottom Nuclear Generating Station would displace an estimated 3.46 million people from 31,000 square kilometers of

contaminated land Contaminated land contains substances in or under the land that are definitively or potentially hazardous to health or the environment. These areas often have a long history of industrial production and industrial farming. Many sites may be affect ...

, while a study conducted at

Princeton University Princeton University is a private university, private Ivy League research university in Princeton, New Jersey, United States. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth, New Jersey, Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the List of Colonial ...

suggested that the number of displaced people could go as high as 18.1 million people. An earlier study from 1975 assessed the nuclear station's ecological impact on fish fauna along the Susquehanna River.

Notable residents

* Bryan Cutler, State Speaker, Pennsylvania House Representatives * Andrew L. Drummond, Chief of the United States Secret Service from 1891 to 1894 * Christopher McDougall, writer and journalist, author of '' Born to Run: A Hidden Tribe, Superathletes, and the Greatest Race the World Has Never Seen'' (2009)

References

{{authority control Unincorporated communities in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania Unincorporated communities in Pennsylvania