Indian Steps Museum
205 Indian Steps Rd.
Airville, PA 17302
Phone: 717-862-3948
Region: Dutch Country Roads
The Indian Steps Museum in southern York County is so named because "steps" were carved centuries ago in the nearby (now submerged) Susquehanna River rocks by Native people who used the footholds to fish for shad. It wasn't until 1912 that York Attorney John E. Vandersloot built the unusual museum which includes a round room or kiva and masonry walls that are embedded with 10,000 artifacts to form Indian patterns, birds, animals and reptiles. The banks of the Susquehanna River, which is named after a Native American word for long, winding river, is an appropriate site for the museum. Nearby Washington Boro, on the Lancaster County side of the river, is believed to have housed the largest Native American settlement east of the Mississippi River. Petroglyphs, arrowheads and axes have been unearthed at various points along both shores of the river.
