Results tagged “Meadowbrook” from York Town Square

Springettsbury Township's (Pa.) Avalong Dairy house, aka Meadowbrook mansion, aka Christmas Tree Hill has long captured the imagination of motorists traveling on Whiteford Road. At one time, it served as the office of the dairy. Also of interest: Before Geno's made news in Philly, Gino's headlined in York and Druck Valley, Glades area offers beautiful scenery for Sunday afternoon drive and York-area full of memory-spawning landmarks

As a kid, York, Pa.'s, R. Stephen Bancroft would ride his bike up to Avalong Dairy Farm from his home in East York and help with the cows and play in the barn.

As a teen, he delivered office supplies - for his father's business, H.G. Bancroft, Inc. - to the back door of the house.

"So I am some what familiar with the history of the area," he wrote to York Town Square in an e-mail.

He provided insight into that popular Whiteford Road/Mount Zion Road corner plus some information on Melvin's Drive-In, another nostalgia-inducing landmark for many York countians: ... .

The Meadowbrook Mansion looms in the background as folks and their mounts mug for the camera. That area of Springettsbury Township, Pa., has seen farms and businesses come and go for decades. Also of interest: From top dog and hot dogs to dogfight and dog days in York County, Pa., Before Geno's made news in Philly, Gino's headlined in York and Mother Goose teaches York County history lessons.

The Whiteford (Arsenal) Road/Springettsbury Township intersection has been a site for change over the years.

In a recent e-mail, longtime area resident JoAnne Everhart traced some of those changes.

She started with memories from recent York Town Square posts on local miniature golf courses, specifically "Little Duffer" in York Township.

Then she told of another course on the northwest corner near the memorable Avalong Restaurant. A stop at the drive-in inevitably followed the putt-putt game.

Here are excerpts from her e-mail:

The Meadowbrook Mansion is pictured after renovations in the 1980s. Christmas Tree Hill now operates out of the former home of cigarmaker Edwin Myers and, later, the family of Clair Long. Background posts: From top dog and hot dogs to dogfight and dog days in York County, Pa., Before Geno's made news in Philly, Gino's headlined in York and Property rights foundational factor in Lauxmont dispute.

Clair Long remembers when his parents, Alva R. and Mary Long, lived in Springettsbury Township's Meadowbrook Mansion.

And he and his wife Jorene resided in another house on the farm. Borders Books stands today in the vicinity of Long's former living room.

He shared memories of his former 180-acre farm after reading about the Meadowbrook and its former grounds in the news. The saga of Mother Goose and her goslings made it to the front page. It was a story of a Canada goose trying to subsist among sprawl... .

Springettsbury Township's Meadowbrook Mansion looms in the background as riders and horses strike a pose. At the turn of the 20th century, cigarmaker Edwin Myers brough this George revival look to the mansion. Many stories are attached to the site. Tradition has it that invading, horse-hungry Confederates visited the spread in 1863, perhaps in search of the ancestors of the mounts pictured here. This photograph came from a Meadowbrook Village brochure filed at the York County Heritage Trust. Background posts: Property rights foundational in Lauxmont debate, York County cigars: 'They contained a vast amount of nicotine.' and Picturesque steel bridges going way of covered bridge ancestors.

The Canada goose that sought to hatch her goslings near Borders on Whiteford Road provided an opportunity to draw lessons from the former Meadowbrook estate.

I devoted my York Sunday News column (5/11/08) to the topic, which touched on the Dempwolf architects, cigarmaking, the lives of the rich and covered bridges - and the story of Mother Goose: