(WHTM) – The oldest building in Pennsylvania is around 41 years older than the state itself.
Pennsylvania was founded in 1681 but the oldest building in the Keystone State was built around 1640 in Drexel Hill, Delaware County.
According to the Curbed Philadelphia, the building is a Lower Swedish Cabin that is two stories and was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1980.
The cabin was used as a trading post in the 17th century between Swedish immigrants and local Native Americans. Items like tools, furs, and native crafts would be traded.
According to the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission, these log cabins are some of the earliest evidence of European settlement in the Keystone State.
The cabin was built using hewn logs and clay and has a corner chimney.
The Swedish people built most if not all of their buildings with logs including houses, barns, churches, forts, mills, sheds, stables, and trading posts.
These buildings were a part of the colony called “New Sweden” which was made up of current-day Pennsylvania, Delaware, and New Jersey.
Throughout the 18th and 19th centuries the cabin was used by other settlers and in the early 1900s filmmaker Siegmund Lubin used the cabin as a part of a movie set, according to AZ Animals.
The cabin would be used by various tenants as a private residence and as a meeting space for the Girl Scouts until 1937.
According to the Lower Swedish Cabin, in 1937 it would be recorded by the Historic American Buildings Survey and would become the property of the township of Upper Darby.
A group called “Friends of the Swedish Cabin” would restore the building and get it added to as a National Historic Landmark.
If you have photos of the Lower Swedish Cabin, send them to mbenedetto@abc27.com
