Former Elementary School 

Borough of Wormleysburg 

Cumberland County, PA 

This former elementary school was built in 1929 and used for many years until the water from the Susquehanna River in the 1972 Agnes flood caused the building to be closed by the West Shore School District which declared the building to be unfit for occupancy. Flood waters in June 1972 reportedly reached the elevated first floor of the building. 

It is located on a lot with frontage of 351 feet along both North Second Street and River Alley in back by a depth of 150 feet and contains both the historic 2-story school building and former macadam playground (now a parking lot). The building contains 9,480 square feet of gross building area above grade plus a full basement. A copy of a survey of the site is attached hereto. 

The West Shore School District sold the property to private investors in May 1980 and it was then sold to and used as Professional Home Health Care Agency who then merged with Pinnacle Health Home Care & Hospice. It was then in March 1997 and used as an office building and then most recently sold in March 2021 to be used by Behavior Therapy International (BPI Group). Renovations and upgrade were complete in the building by most of the previous owners over the years after the school closed its doors. 

This school, built in 1929, replaced the original elementary school in Wormleysburg located at 322 South Front Street (corner of South Front Street and Houck Street) which is and has been owned and used as Charles Furriers and some other office and retail space at the south end and the restaurant district of Wormleysburg. 

The original façade of the school remains today as it was over the years and the attached playground, now a parking lot, featured some intense full court basketball games after schools and over weekends and the balance of the playground was used by children of all ages. 

The site was the venue for many years for a one-day carnival in which the block of the school was closed and the school site and playground and wide street in front was the center of the carnival. The school was also a meeting place for teenagers in the 1950’s and 1960’s. 

As a school, there were numerous classrooms plus a cafeteria which was also used as a combined small auditorium for the students and the main flood was elevated above grade level by wide wood steps. 

The Borough of Wormleysburg was originally laid out as a town by John Wormley in 1815. Mr. Wormley was an explorer and lumberman who also operated a ferry across the Susquehanna River to Harrisburg and his original dwelling still stands at the corner of North Front Street and Walnut Streets. 

His ferry competed with a ferry operated by John Harris, for whom the Capital City is named. With the construction of the Old Camelback Bridge (now the Market Street Bridge), the Wormley Ferry discontinued operations two or so years after. It ran from Ferry Street in Wormleysburg to Pine Street in Harrisburg. It was also known as the Kelso Ferry. 

The original Wormley log house, built by John Wormley’s father, John Sr., is still standing behind and immediately to the east of the office building at North 21st Street and the Camp Hill By-Pass (U.S. Routes 11-15). The elder Wormley died 1789. 

The original town was bounded by the river on the west, by the Borough of Lemoyne on the south and west, also by the Market Street Bridge on the south, and by Pine Street on the north. In 1928, the portion of the Borough that now runs north to the Conodoguinet Creek was annexed from East Pennsboro Township. 

Today, Wormleysburg consists of (3) neighborhoods including Edgewater in the old town section along the river, Pennsboro Manor from Walnut Street north to Mumma Road, and Riverview Heights which runs from Poplar Church Road north to the creek and west just short of Erford Road (approved in 1958 as a residential development). 

The Walnut Street Bridge (known as the People’s Bridge) was built circa 1890 and was the only passenger trolley link from Harrisburg to the West Shore and tracks across the bridge were laid in 1894 and the tracks led north to Marysville through Wormleysburg in the middle of North Second Street (now the site of the Borough Park and the State HQ of the American Legion to the north), south to New Cumberland and west to Carlisle. The last trolley car ran on April 9, 1938. 

The Walnut Street bridge was damaged in the 1972 flood and closed to vehicular traffic and, in 1996, a flood and major ice hit the bridge and the middle section collapsed and the remaining span remains today. 

Today, Wormleysburg is home of the worldwide headquarters of the Harsco Corporation (above the railroad tracks at Stella Street) and the State HQ of the American Legion (800 North Front Street). 

Prepared by 

Don Paul Shearer 

President 

West Shore Historical Society