Main Line Real Estate:
Wayne PA on the Philadelphia Main Line is a place filled with history and a great place to call home. Wayne developed over time, it was not till the first tracks of the railroad being laid in 1832 bringing visitors and J Henry Askin bought the first of three farms in 1864 that the center of Wayne began to develop.
You only have to look around to see the history is all around you, you just need to know where to look sometimes. Conestoga Road was originally an Indian Trail west to the Susquehanna in 1741, It was improved in 1769.
The 13th milestone now presides over Wayne's major street crossing which is on the Philadelphia and Lancaster Turnpike built 1792-1794. Travellers shared the roads with flocks and merchadise transported in Conestoga wagons flowing to and from Philadelphia.
Sometimes we drive right by stuff because we are so accustomed to it we miss the history that is right there under our noses. Where Braxtons now stands was originally Sarah Siter's House built in 1798. Two inns stood nearby The Unicorn and Spread Eagle where Conestoga and the turnpike crossed. The Spread Eagle Tavern was built in 1796 by John Siter and was the most valuable building in Radnor Township until after the Civil War and was the inn that other inn-owners copied. This area today known as Strafford originally went by the name Siterville and had the first post office in Radnor township.
If you drive along Gulph Road you probably have seen Union Chapel it still stands on the corner of Gulph Road and Henry Avenue. It was originally built in 1833 as the Carr Schoolhouse, a year before public education was mandated in Pennsylvania it was vacated in 1866, refurbished in 1880 for a Sunday School, vacated again in 1897.
The first few houses in Wayne were built in 1881 on Lancaster Avenue, followed by North Wayne Avenue, West Wayne Avenue and Conestoga Road. In 1885 because of the lack of adequate local township government, a few familes in North Wayne, population 26, banded together to set up the North Wayne Association, later known as the North Wayne Protective Association. Being from Philadelphia they wanted police and fire protection, sidewalks and street lighting, paved roads and better drainage, all facilities they were accustomed to in the City. Walnut Avenue was laid out and developed in 1887 by Wendell and Smith Builders to become the first large scale project North of the tracks.
Five years later the Wayne Public Safety Association later known as the South Wayne Public Safety Association was formed to offer the same services to those living South of the tracks.
Lots of advertising took place stressing the "clean air", pure water, healthy elevation and "generous spirit" of the area, plus the 60 daily trains to town. Six styles of homes were advertised, most designed by F. L. and W. L. Price ranging in cost from $3500 to $7000, much less than today, but a fortune in those days. By the end of 1899 100 houses had been built north of the tracks.
Today, Wayne has many more than 100 homes, in more than six styles, although those six original styles are well represented; and still we have homes being built, on Louella and Ironworks by the tracks behind the Jaguar dealership. These are both on the south of the tracks rather than north where little if no ground is available for development today.
