Gen. Wilkins was the original owner of a large tract of land at the mouth of Pine creek, embracing the present site of Etna. His residence, a large frame structure, was the first house in what afterward became the town. David Anderson purchased the land from him, and laid it off in streets and lots. It early received the name of Stewartstown, from David Stewart, an active citizen, and one of the first after Wilkins.

The manufacture of scythes and sickles was begun in 1820 upon the present site of Spang, Chalfant & Co.’s works. H. S. Spang purchased this primitive establishment in 1828, and adapted it to the rolling of bar-iron from blooms, employing fifty men. The present open-hearth steelworks were placed in operation in August, 1882. The plant consists of two twelve-gross-ton Siemens open-hearth furnaces; one twelve-pot crucible furnace, started in May, 1885; product, steel castings; annual capacity, eighteen thousand net tons. . . . The Spang Steel & Iron company, limited, operates works built at Etna in 1880-81, consisting of three ten-gross-ton Siemens-Martin open-hearth furnaces, seven heating-furnaces, one hammer and four trains of rolls. The product consists of steel plates, and machinery and spring-steel, to the amount of eighteen thousand net tons annually . . . The Isabella furnaces were erected in 1872. The larger is seventy-five feet high and twenty feet bosh, the smaller sixty-five feet high and nineteen feet bosh, the combined annual capacity being one hundred and thirty thousand net tons.

The borough had a population in 1870 of 1,447; in 1880, 2,334. Daniel Hieber, born in Wurtemburg in 1788, started the first wagon-maker’s shop in 1835, having removed to Philadelphia in 1833. The borough was incorporated September 16, 1868. Henry Ochse, the first burgess, was born in Hesse-Cassel in 1820, and became a resident in 1841. The Etna Valley Record was first issued April 1, 1887, by H. H. Sallade, and is published weekly. The Labor Voice, established by A. L. Weihe in June, 1887, expired in the following September.

The United Presbyterian Church was organized February 13, 1868. The pastor, Rev. A. H. Calvert, was installed in 1868. The German Evangelical Church, Rev. P. Korn, pastor, is the only other religious organization.