Results tagged “Seven Valleys” from York Town Square

This photograph shows the Codorus Creek near Richland Avenue before Depression-era flood-control efforts changed its appearance. (Courtesy of York County Heritage Trust.) Background posts: Destructive flood of 1933 struck York County 75 years ago, It couldn't happen in York County? Women were trampled in Depression-era labor unrest and Bad economy turned York Safe and Lock toward lucrative defense work .

In a previous post Great Depression not only pinched in York County, it punched, I take a poke at the notion that the county somehow escaped the very tough times of the 1930s.

That assertion has come down over the years because no bank in York failed during the Depression.

No banks apparently failed in the city.

But using Charles Bloomfield's Millersville University master's research, I point out that 17 of York County's 46 banks either failed or reorganized.

This discussion caused Warren Miller of Hanover to inquire about which banks did, indeed, fail... .

John McDonald opens the old lockup in Seven Valleys, a holding pen for overnight detention, typical of man that dotted towns around Yok County. 'This is really a neat structure,' said Police Heritage Museum's John Stine told the York Daily Record/Sunday News. 'It's plain. But this is what they were, they were plain.' Background posts: Police museum, Web site packed with York County law enforcement info, 'There were only so many cells in that old stone prison', First county prison housed irksome Brits

The Police Heritage Museum, based in York, remains on the huntfor information about the old lockups that decades ago operated in towns throughout York County.

The museum Web site contains capsules of information about some of the lockups.

The most intriguing is an all-slate box in Delta... .

Harry Flinchbaugh of Red Lion's Flinchbaugh Cigars was a hands-on owner. His factory, along with scores of other cigarmakers, helped Red Lion and other York County communities prosper in the first part of the 20th century. Red Lion may have claim to the top cigarmaking community. "Red Lion: The First 100 Years" notes that the peak number of factories in the borough between 1880 and 1930 was 150. (York County Heritage Trust photo.) Background posts: Cigarmaking Red Lion on top of York County and Red Lion's Ebert Furniture: From bedroom suites to gunstocks.

York County has long put forth products that attract so-called sin taxes.

We have brewed beer in York, distilled whiskey in Foustown and rolled tobacco in Red Lion and scores of other locations throughout the county... .

'Salute This Happy Morn,' is a book on the Glen Rock Carolers. But it's also a book on Glen Rock, a caption in this 1997 work surmises: 'Perhaps these rocks near his house, exposed by the construction of the Baltimore and Susquehanna Railroad, gave William Heathcote an idea for the name of the village he had so large a part in founding. These same tracks have been the site of train wrecks, excursion trains, and most recently, trains of bike riders using of the rail trail running through the borough. Background posts: 'I really like these old pictures of Glen Rock', Former CCC Camp now on the map and AMP's and AMF's alphabet soup spilled in same small town .

Fellow blogger June Lloyd tells the rivoting story of the spectacular train accident that rocked Glen Rock on Good Friday, 1920.

Glen Rock has always been a newsy town. (To provide it, search this blog for all of the posts linked to this southern York County borough.)

Here are some insights into the town, as found in George Prowell's 1907 "History of York County, Pennsylvania," with my own comments in parenthesis:

Jan Weitkamp of York Township shops the Zarfos Furniture Store in Red Lion. Weitkamp would visit the store with her parents and later bought her own furniture from Zarfos. A century ago, her family would have used the store's undertaking services.

George Hay was leader of local volunteer troops in the Civil War.

He was part of the delegation that rode to Farmers Post Office, 10 miles west of York, to surrender the town to the advancing Confederates.

But he is also known today for his civilian occupation. He made furniture - and caskets. He was an early York County furniture maker/funeral director... .

A typical Seven Valleys-area ice cream plant, complete with factory store.

Every time I read Armand Glatfelter's history of Seven Valleys, I peruse the section covering the burgeoning ice cream industry in that area in the 1800s.

Why Seven Valleys?

That area had dairy cattle.

It had streams that could be dammed to harvest ice in the winter for making ice cream the next summer.

And it had the Northern Central Railroad (See the Great Watermelon Train Wreck). The Northern Central Railroad that ran to an eagerly awaiting market in Baltimore.

And it had enough people to rake leaves.

Large amounts of leaves and sawdust were needed to insulate the ice taken from the frozen waterways against the summer heat. So, laborers took the woods in the fall to rake piles and piles of leaves.

Eighty-nine years later, people still talk about the fruit train wreck on the Northern Central Railroad in Seven Valleys.

It was 8 p.m. on a war-weary July night in 1918.

Seven Valleys was the place. Specifically, at the railroad cut in this southcentral York County hamlet.

A northbound train laden with fruit - York County's orchards and gardens and canneries were in full production - stopped near the borough's station.

Air brake problems.

A second fruit train rolled along at an unsuspecting pace a few minutes later.

The engineer slowed down but didn't put enough pressure on the brakes. The locomotive plowed into back of the stationary train... .