Chartered in 1885 by local interests, the line provided freight and passenger service from the small communities of the Deer Creek Valley to the Northern Central Railway at New Freedom for its first eighty-seven years of existence. Known as the "farmer's railroad," its traffic base was largely agricultural in nature, supplanted by a number of small manufacturing firms.
Today, the Stewartstown Railroad remains intact, both physically and in its corporate structure. It is, in fact, the only railroad in York County, and quite possibly in the Commonwealth, to retain its original corporate structure and its original right-of-way completely intact throughout its entire existence.