Results tagged “Pidgeon Hills” from York Town Square

The Spring Grove (Pa.) Public School, left, was dedicated in 1898 and enlarged in 1921, right, as seen in this photo from "The Spring Grove Years." Who are the two luminaries in those round fixtures, photo at right, on this Dempwolf building's side, on either side of the arched entryway? Background posts: John Luther Long: Miss Saigon's York County connection and Each month, three free history presentations offered to York countians and York countians major makers of Kentucky, make that Pennsylvania, long rifles.

Recent posts have reviewed various sung and unsung sites in the Spring Grove-Hanover- McSherrytown area. (See Mining a rich vein of southwestern York County's religious history, Part 1 and Part 2.)

But the tour of southwestern York County that spawned those posts touched on non-religious questions as well.

Here are three: ... .

A slow-moving tractor tows bales of hay along Grandview Road in Jackson Township in 2007. The township has long been agricultural in nature. "The land of Jackson Township is fertile and productive, and its owners are industrious and prosperous," historian George Prowell wrote in 1907. But the township's location along the turnpike - later the Lincoln Highway and Route 30 - and the Western Maryland Railroad also meant it has played host to its share of industry. Soon, an Arm & Hammer plant is expected to operate there. Background posts: Part of York County's past goes on the auction block, York County railroading: 'Something that gets in your blood' and Old Lincoln Highway pulled 'Americans out of the mud'.

Jackson Township, carved from Paradise Township in 1857, is slated to be home to a new Arm & Hammer laundry detergent plant and distribution center.

Though a longtime farming township with a productive limestone and red shale soil, its position along the former York-Gettysburg Turnpike and the presence of the Western Maryland Railroad meant that businesses have long been operated there... .

The Del McCoury Band -- led by county native Del McCoury, right -- brought bluegrass to The Strand-Capitol last New Year's Eve. "Del McCoury doesn't consider himself hip, but just about everyone who's ever heard a bluegrass tune seems to think otherwise. McCoury admits, however, that he does think it's important to look snazzy on stage," a York Daily Record photo caption stated in promoting the performance.The band will be playing in York in early 2008 at the York County Chamber Annual Inaugural Ball. Background posts: Roy Rogers took York County stage but not alone and Story on famed 101 Ranch Boys spawns memories.

A yorktownsquare.com reader pointed out that in my lists of national arts and entertainment giants hailing from York County, I hadn't mentioned the Del McCoury Band. I actually included the band in a post of national performers from York County, but haven't focused on this celebrated bluegrass band.

McCoury, who says he was born on the family farm in the Pidgeon Hills, has been at it for years and keeps getting better.

The York Daily Record said this about McCoury in a 2006 story:

The passenger pigeon monument at Codorus State Park, seen standing on a hill off Marina Road, was rededicated 25 years ago after the move from its original site in the hills north of Hanover. Background posts about a York County pigeons of different types: World War II homing pigeons served far from home and York's racing pigeons: 'This is like the Kentucky Derby'.

Some sources say those hills north of Hanover are the Pidgeon Hills. Others say they're the Pigeon Hills.

It's a difficult controversy to resolve.

Some believe those hills are named after the Pigeon family. Others back the Penn's surveyor of Paradise Township, Joseph Pidgeon.

The controversy is stoked by the fact that now-extinct passenger pigeons populated the area in the late 1880s. Indeed, there's even a monument at Codorus State Park to recognize their ubiquity in these parts... .