Duryea PA is a borough in Pennsylvania. It is located in the Scranton/Wilkes-Barre metropolitan area, and was first settled around 1870.
The community has an interesting history, as it was built on land that used to be owned by George Duryea. He had purchased this around 1870 after he had left the coal industry, and his family had moved to Iowa. This land was originally forest, but Duryea cut down trees to make room for structures like barns, roads, orchards, gardens, etc.
However the borough is not its original size. The community consists of two separate parts; East Duryea and West Duryea. East Duryea was built first in 1916 after the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Street Railway Company built tracks through here. This led to a rapid growth of people moving into this area because they wanted access to public transportation that would bring them to coal mines owned by the Lackawanna Coal Company for employment opportunities. These were located in Fox Hill (1875), Vosburg (1878), and the Vulcan (1908). However, there were no trolley cars in West Duryea.
West Duryea was first called Unionville by J. Briel at the time it had been laid out into building lots for houses to be built upon. The community had its name changed into West Duryea around 1920 when they needed to have a post office established here, because both East and West Duryeas were part of the original George Duryea’s land. When this happened, people living in this area voted on whether or not their community should be renamed West Duryea or Unionville.