Results tagged “York Fair” from York Town Square

This photograph ran in the York Sunday News right after New Year's Day in 2000, and its caption noted that the last of the Bury's 11 York-area restaurants closed in 1986. In a sense, Joe Bury's popular hamburger stands out-McDonalded McDonald's for years. Background post: New McStore going up in highly trafficked spot and York countians are proud of the York Fair, and there's a lot to be proud about and York-area full of memory-spawning landmarks.

Let's just say the contest between York Fair's two known Bury hamburger vendors was settled by the strength of an onion slice.

It's the annual York Fair faceoff pitting the Bury's burger from Johnny Eagle's stand versus the offering from the Bury's Famous Hamburger booth.

Many people have York Fair traditions, and mine has become sampling the burgers from the two stands and deciding which is better that particular day ... .

These patriotic pre-World War II York (Pa.) Fair days were hopeful after a rough summer of battling a polio outbreak. Fairgoers needed this respite. Just two months later, Pearl Harbor changed everything. Also of interest: This York Fair mural is fading from sight and Good old days at the York Fair were at least old and JFK received grand applause at York Fair visit.

An e-mailer, an exec with a local firm and proud of the York Fair, asked the York Daily Record/Sunday News to ask for special York Fair memories.

I wrote back saying we have done just that, and they're available with audio clips by clicking here.

And we've created a thread on the York Daily Record/Sunday News' bulletin board, The Exchange, for you to share your memories.

And the posts on the blog All's Fair includes many historical memories of the fair.

That's all past stuff... .

York Hospital treated its Spanish flu patients at the York Fairgrounds in the fall of 1918. The fair was canceled that year. Background posts: Well-known doctor, York, Pa.'s Edmund Meisenhelder, beat back flu and West Side Sanitarium, later West Side Osteopathic and later Memorial Hospital born in The Avenues in York and Looking for a local history research project?

Susan Lilly, SusanLilly@weavingroom.com, lives in Portland, Ore., but she's interested in information from York, Pa., on how it weathered the deadly Spanish flu epidemic.

In old family letters, she discovered that her grandmother lost five close friends, including a cousin.

She's looking for first-person memories, family stories,
or copies of any letters that folks would be willing to share.

She wrote: ... .

Theodore Roosevelt's1906 visit made York County news when The York Dispatch published a rare front-page photo. This marked one of the last times - if not the last time - the Dispatch would depart from a gray, eight-column front page without photos for the next 82 years. The image of another U.S. president, George Bush, prompted a front-page photo in 1988. Roosevelt, just back from dedicating the new capitol building in Harrisburg, rode in an open carriage from York's Centre Square to the fairgrounds where he touted York's growing prosperity. Background posts: Presidential visits listed, York-based historian shakes hands with 8 U.S. presidents and Presidents visit York, alive and via funeral trains

In the buildup to the inauguration of new U.S. President Barack Obama, I'll post numerous entries here about presidential links to York County.

We'll start with the well-attended visit by popular U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt... .

This First Thanksgiving marker is a bit off the street in downtown York unlike the other dozen markers that relate to the Continental Congress' visit to York in 1777-78. It's located in a park that offers a bit of sanctuary to the lunchtime sandwich crowd, located between M&T Bank and the East Market Street Parking Garage. Background posts: Where was Thomas Jefferson when Congress met in York?, American Revolution was a young man's fight and York Town Square's American Revolution category .

York County has put forth many interesting claims to fame over the years, some of which are hard to prove: York Fair is the nation's oldest. York was the Detroit of the East. York was the nation's first capital.

Another one of these is that the first national Thanksgiving was spawned from York. There's something to the nuanced claim, but not enough to make it a consensus outside York County... .

She looked skeptically at the best, publicly known recipe for Bury's hamburger sauce - a recipe that reportedly passed muster with Joe Bury himself.

I'll get the real recipe, she said, one that appeared in your newspaper... .

This closeup of a cake is part of a York Fair panel, one of 18 that make up the Murals of York. This photo from 2005 shows that this 120-foot by 24-foot mural on the East Market Street Parking Garage is thin up close. (See additional photos below.) Background posts: Don't know much about York County history? Part I, Don't know much? Part II, Don't know much? Part III and If you want to see the Murals of York up close ...

I've blogged that York's East Market Street Parking Garage is an artifact of history because it represented the downtown's futile efforts to stave loss of its retail base to the suburbs in the late 1960s.

I've also blogged that the wide, skinny York Fair mural on the parking garage's side represents a curious juxtaposition because the vehicles parking there are part of the reason that agriculture, celebrated by the fair, is declining.

Further, that mural appears to be in the process of being subsumed by the parking garage's white side... .

Betty Bury Harmon,right, continues to sell her family's namesake burger at the York Fair, one of two stands to do so. York County food-related posts: Before Geno's made news in Philly, Gino's headlined in York, From top dog and hot dogs to dogfight and dog days in York County, Pa. and Interstate lined out Melvin's swan song.

"Does the recipe come with the price?" I asked the woman behind the counter at Johnnie Eagle's stand at the York Fair.

I was continuing my probe for the secret recipe behind that red sauce covering the Bury's burger in my hand.

She declined with a smile.

"You won't get that recipe," a customer behind me in line said.

I might already have it... .

This promotional poster shows the types of events at the top of the York Fair's promotional list in 1928. Background posts: 'The lower she sank in the chair', Old-time York bike shop: 'It's like a store that time forgot' and Can anyone locate this ballpark?.

All's Fair, a blog made up of York Daily Record/Sunday News staff postings, is an example of local blogging tied to York County and international events.

The O-Zone was another blog where staffers explored the Olympics.

York Town Square readers will find - an enjoy - a number of York Fair-history related posts, with links back to this blog: ... .

This poster helped draw people to the York Fair to hear Democratic presidential candidate John F. Kennedy speak in 1960. But Republican Richard Nixon drew more votes from York countians than Kennedy. Background posts: Ted Kennedy's visit to York comes almost 50 years after JFK's, Richard Nixon's visit to his namesake park sparks memories and Richard Nixon's visits seared into York countians' minds.

York County solidly backed Republican Richard M. Nixon over John F. Kennedy in 1960, with the tally coming in at 55,109 to 38,710.

That came after Kennedy made a hit with his York Fair visit just before the election. JFK won the nationally televised debate, the debate some say was decided by Nixon's 5 o'clock shadow and choice of a gray suit on black and white TV.

So why the Nixon win in York County? ...

The large-scale outdoor panel, part of the Murals of York series, shows Dr. George Holtzapple deploying oxygen to treat a Loganville pneumonia patient. Background posts: Looking for a local history research project? and Of surgical saws, bloodletting.

George Holtzapple, longtime physician at York Hospital, has been credited in local lore as the very first user of oxygen for treatment of pneumonia in 1885.

As a young physician, just out of medical school, Holtzapple (1862-1946) used a primitive experiment to produce oxygen to save the life of 16-year-old Frederick Gable.

Well, two York Hospital researchers, writing in the Journal of Medical Biography in November 2005, have clarified Holtzapple's achievement... .

Nostalgia points us to those days when life seemed sweeter or simpler, even though it wasn't always.

So I noted in a recent post.

With all its wonderful community-building tendencies, nostalgia at times can mask memories of a sometimes gritty, less-than-perfect place and time.

Such lapses can make county life today seem worse in comparison.

Here's just one example of our checkered past, an attraction at the York Fair that Dave Gulden described in the book, "America's First Fair From Then Until Now."

"Hit the Coon" was a popular throwing game in the 1930s. Drawing from another book, Gulden states that the game involved a canvas scene with a hole cut in it. A black man stuck his head through the hole and tried to dodge the ball.... .

A father and son took brides last week at the York Fair.

Interesting how love and the fair have gone hand-in-hand from the annual festival's earliest days... .

A historical marker near the York Fairgrounds states that the York Fair is the oldest such event in America.

So does a York Fair mural on the side of the East Market Street parking garage. (The widest of all the murals at 120 feet.)

And occasionally the claim will find its way into print, as it did in the York Daily Record on Friday.

The problem is that it's a hard claim to pin down. Two of the oldest York County histories -- Gibson's and Prowell's -- just tell about its founding in 1765... .