Fence Company in Radnor, PA

The community of Radnor was founded in 1686 at the Radnor Friends Meetinghouse, which was located on Conestoga Road, a bypass of Lancaster Avenue connecting Devon and Bryn Mawr. During the Revolutionary War, the meetinghouse was used as an outpost for General George Washington’s Continental Army. In 1872, the Pennsylvania Railroad’s Main Line was constructed, which briefly passed through the southern section of Radnor. A station serving the town was established at King of Prussia Road, approximately one mile south of the Meetinghouse.

For much of its history, Radnor was primarily a farming community, and relatively undeveloped, even past World War II. Its town center, around the Meetinghouse, remained quaint and secluded from denser development seen in the nearby communities of Wayne and Bryn Mawr. However, starting in the 1980s, Radnor started to see great residential and commercial development, mostly stemming from suburban development for Philadelphia. Additionally, office parks began to spring up in the southern portion of the community, by the train station, primarily due to safety concerns in Center City. Some big name firms, such as Lincoln National Corporation, moved their headquarters from Center City to Radnor, and currently the community is best known for its financial hub around the train station.

In the 1970s, highway planners envisioned the Blue Route expressway passing through Radnor, approximately .3 mile east of the Meetinghouse. The project faced severe backlash from the Radnor community, as what was initially known as a quiet, rural feeling town would have a lot more noise. Despite attempts to quell the project, the community eventually lost, and the Blue Route opened in the 1990s on the initial alignment.