Results tagged “Potosi” from York Town Square

This image, used as a basis for a large-scale panel in the York County Heritage Trust's Murals of York series, shows Dr. George Holtzapple deploying oxygen to treat a Loganville pneumonia patient. This image appeared in York Hospital's history 'That Sovereign Knowledge.' Tradition has it that this pioneering treatment took place in the house's basement. Background posts: Looking for a local history research project? and Of surgical saws, bloodletting and Brown's in Loganville: 'I didn't know a peach tree from an apple tree, but we learned quickly.'

Lois Stoner, a nurse in York, e-mailed recently wondering why the Loganville house where Dr. George Holtzapple saved young pneumonia sufferer Frederick Gable's life is not marked with a historical monument.

She raises a good point ... .

The major Adhesives Research fire last week leads to the question of how the nearby crossroads of Potosi got its name.

John D. Kilbourne, Historical Society of York County director, weighed in about 50 years ago after receiving an inquiry from a Wisconsin resident.

The inquirer was trying to link mining with other towns in the Americas called Potosi.

Kilbourne wrote back that Iron ore mining occurred in the 1880s in Springfield Township. The Potosi Post Office was established there in 1901.

"Circumstances seem to indicate a tie-in with the mining activities," Kilbourne wrote.

This information came from a York Daily Record article in 1995.

The newspaper further reported that in 1540, Spanish colonists discovered silver in the Potosi state of southern Bolivia. Cerro Potosi mountain was "honeycombed with thousands of mines," according to the Encyclopedia Britannica. "Legend attributes its name to "potojchi,' a Quechua Indian word meaning 'to explode,' because of rumblings inside the mountain."

The capital city of Potosi became famous for its wealth from silver mining in the 1650s.

For more on Potosi, Pa., see a York Daily Record story on the community below: