Lenape Indians used the site’s iron-rich springwater, as did Colonial settlers as early as 1722. George Washington stayed at the site following the Battle of the Brandywine and commissioned the first permanent military hospital in North America to be built here during the Valley Forge encampment. Following the war, Yellow Springs flourished as a spa resort with the addition of new hotels, visitor amenities, and springhouses. In 1868, the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania purchased the village to create the Chester Springs Soldiers’ Orphan School, a boarding school for orphans of Civil War soldiers. The school closed in 1912, and the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts bought the village to create a country school for its artists. In 1952, the film company Good News Productions moved into the village, where it produced over 400 Christian educational films and blockbuster movies such as The Blob.

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