Results tagged “S. Forry Laucks” from York Town Square

Here's a hint to answer part of York County Smarts quiz, Part IV: This former York County legislator made history when she became the first woman elected to the General Assembly in the 1960s. (See additional photo below). York County smarts quiz, Part I, Part II, Part III.

Since its beginning, Pennsylvania has accomplished awesome results in the civilized arts -- more so than other areas of the United States of comparable size.

So says Philip Klein in his "History of Pennsylvania."

"Every region generates some creative people," he and co-author Ari Hogenboom wrote, "but Pennsylvania produced them by the hundreds."

Why?

Credit it to a diverse population, William Penn's quest for liberty and a varied, resource-rich geographic landscape.

Benjamin Franklin is Klein's Exhibit A of a Pennsylvania who showed original thought coupled with practical experiment.

All this could help explain why York countians have long made their mark on the state and national landscape... .

This is the view of the wide stretch of the Susquehanna River from Highpoint, part of York Safe & Lock owner Forry Laucks' Lauxmont estate. Easy access to the river from both the York and Lancaster county sides made the river between Wrightsville and Columbia a crossroads - and a part of many key phases of this region's past. That's the Columbia-Wrightsville Bridge in the foreground and the Wright's Ferry Bridge up river. Background posts: When the bridge over the Codorus moved, New Freedom station houses alien safe, The bomb: 'And yet it stopped the war' and Noted photo archive captures York County treasures.

My York Sunday News column "The Susquehanna River runs near it" tells about the life and death of York Safe & Lock's S. Forry Laucks.

What happened to York Safe & Lock after his death in 1942?...

S. Forry Laucks' name has appeared in several York Town Square posts, in part, because he was such a player in early 20th century York County.

His legacy includes:

-- Harley-Davidson uses part of his York Safe & Lock plant to make motorcycles. That particular plant made Bofors, the main anti-aircraft gun used on Navy ships in World War II. Ask any Navy vet from that era about Bofors.

-- His Lauxmont Farm, overlooking the Susquehanna River, is a current point of controversy between those who want to develop parts of it and those who want to turn it into a park.

But that's not all of his legacy: ...

Forry Laucks, the original owner of Lauxmont farms now part of a park controversy, was himself controversial.

The contrarian owner of York Safe & Lock was a Democrat in the 1920s and 1930s when many York County factory owners were Republican. He was a pioneer at getting government contracts for defense work during buildup to World War II, but it took W.S. Shipley from York Ice Machinery and York Corporation, to mold such collaborative efforts into the York Plan.

He was at home on the farm and factory. He had a downtown residence as well as his Lauxmont mansion.

He loved York, but spent much time in New York.

Fortune published a profile, "Up to Lauxmont," shortly before Laucks' death in 1942, which captured a bit of the Laucks' legend. An excerpt follows: ...