Studebaker Home
East Berlin, Adams County, Pennsylvania
Marker Inscription
Built ca. 1790 by David Studebaker, carpenter, farmer, and minister. He was related to the family that later built wagons and automobiles. The house is privately maintained as a museum.
Erected by Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission
The Story
Built around 1790 by David Studebaker—a carpenter, farmer, and minister—this early Pennsylvania home stands connected to one of America's great manufacturing dynasties. The Studebaker family to which he was related would go on to build the wagons that carried settlers west and, later, automobiles. Today the house is privately kept as a museum.
Why it matters
It links a modest frontier homestead to the Studebaker name that would help move America first by wagon and then by motorcar.
Plan your visit
NearbyMake a day of it — museums, food, and places to stay near this marker.
Museums & culture
- Ye Olde Sulphur Spa Historical Society8.9 mi away
- Neas House9.5 mi away · 103 West Chestnut Street, Hanover, PA
- Hanover Fire Museum9.6 mi away
- Gettysburg Battlefield Preservation Association14.3 mi away
- National Apple Museum14.5 mi away
- Adams County Historical Society14.8 mi away · 625 Biglerville Road, Gettysburg, PA
Food & drink
- Mason Dixon Distillery14.9 mi away · 331 East Water Street, Gettysburg, PA
Places to stay
- Sleep Inn and Suites12.5 mi away · 1650 York Road, Gettysburg, PA
- Courtyard Gettysburg13.0 mi away · 115 Presidential Circle, Gettysburg, PA
- Wyndham13.1 mi away · 95 Presidential Circle, Gettysburg, PA
- Hampton Gettysburg13.4 mi away · 1280 York Road, Gettysburg, PA
- Hilton Garden Inn13.8 mi away · 1061 York Road, Gettysburg, PA
- Americas Best Value Inn13.9 mi away · 983 York Road, Gettysburg, PA
Places data © OpenStreetMap contributors. Hours and details change — call ahead.
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Related people
- · David Studebaker
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
John Studebaker
Tyrone Township, PA · est. 1948
In the 1830s a modest wagon-making shop stood near here, run by John Studebaker before he packed up and joined the great westward migration. His decision seeded a dynasty: in 1852 his sons opened a wagon works in Indiana that grew into the largest maker of horse-drawn vehicles in the world. When the age of the horse gave way to the motorcar, the Studebaker firm made the leap in 1897, becoming one of America's earliest automakers.
Birthplace of Commercial Ice Cream Production
Seven Valleys, PA · est. 2012
In 1851 C. Jacob Fussell built a factory near here to turn the surplus milk and cream of York County's dairy farmers into ice cream—the first time the treat was mass-produced for commercial sale in the United States. The nearby Northern Central Railroad carried his product straight to the Baltimore market. After Fussell relocated to Baltimore, local makers kept the trade alive into the 1940s.
Williams Grove
Monroe Township, PA · est. 1980
In the decades after the Civil War, farmers organized into the Grange movement to fight railroad monopolies and share knowledge, and Williams Grove became one of its great gathering places. Founded in 1874 by Robert H. Thomas of the Pennsylvania State Grange, the Great Grangers' Interstate Picnic Exhibition drew crowds estimated at 100,000 or more in a single week by the 1890s. The nearby John Williams House, built around 1799, anchored the site to an earlier era of rural Pennsylvania life.
The Haines Shoe House
Hellam Township, PA · est. 2023
In the boom years after World War II, when the American roadside was becoming a theater of eye-catching commerce, shoe salesman Mahlon Haines built a five-story guesthouse in the literal shape of a work boot to advertise his chain of stores. It stands as a playful example of "programmatic" or novelty architecture—buildings molded into objects to catch a driver's eye—and its perch along the old Lincoln Highway made it a beloved landmark of that coast-to-coast route. Haines, ever the showman, let honeymooners and elderly guests stay for free.