Recently in 1940s Category

Tomatoes and Shakespeare and York County?

I recently wrote my York Sunday News column on the canning houses of York County, going back to the 1920s through the 1950s when the canneries dotted the county. Local farmers could easily haul their fresh vegetables just down the road to be canned and distributed all over the country.

The fanciful labels were lithographed in tempting color, usually depicting lush produce, but sometimes making you wonder why other designs were chosen. You can see the diversity in the photos shown here.

The Wel-Don bean labels above have a great story behind them.

Utz or Martin's--which is best?

York County potato chips manufacturers are in the news again. It looks like Utz has pulled out of the deal to merge with Snyder's of Hanover.

Before I wrap up my "potato chip series," I want to give a nod to Herr's snack foods, located not too far away in Nottingham. Their sour cream and onion ripple chips are second only to regular Utz in my book. Jim Herr bought a small Lancaster potato chip company in 1946, shortly before marrying wife Mim. They built the business up over the years, surviving a devastating plant fire in 1951. They now make over 340 snack foods and distribute them in 26 states and in Canada.

The chip manufacturers I have been researching had their beginnings in the 1920s, 1930s and 1940s. In a search for more early chip makers, I checked the Polk's city directories for York County. These directories were issued every two years and covered York city and "all boroughs located on the lines of York Railways Company" [the trolley lines]. York County Heritage Trust doesn't have quite a full run of directories, but I found more than I thought I would. (See below for a sampling of the results).

Who know how many more chipmakers there were out in the rural areas, like my mother and father. Even though my parents didn't stay in the potato chip business and become multi-millionaries, I would love to have one of the little wax paper bags with the imprint of Burk's Potato Chips. I remember some unused ones around the house from my childhood, long after they stopped making chips, but I guess they were eventually discarded. You just never know what might come up at a public sale or antique shop, so if anyone ever locates one, keep me in mind.

Some chipmakers listed in city directories:

Halloween 1946 in Downtown York

As far back as I can remember, the parade through the streets of York has been the biggest event of the Halloween season. According to the November 1, 1946 Gazette and Daily, the parade had been replaced during the war years with a downtown party. Even though the war had ended a year earlier, the party tradition carried on in 1946.

As you can see from the Gazette and Daily photo above, downtown was jammed. The caption reads:

CONTINENTAL SQUARE IN A GALA MOOD--This shot from the Hartman building shows a segment of the many thousands of Hallowe'eners and spectators who jammed the Square and adjacent blocks during the community "witches' night" celebration last evening. Mayor John L. Snyder said the crowd was "at least a third" larger than last year.

The accompanying article further gives further details:

Lucky canning house, probably 1930s
My 96-year-old mother-in-law remembers picking string beans at farms in Chanceford Township when she was 10 or so in the 1920s. She says she picked beans during the day and then helped snip them at the Lucky canning house in the evening.

I purchased a Lucky canning house ledger covering September through November, 1943 at a yard sale a few years ago and donated it to the York County Heritage Trust Library/Archives. The ledger shows that they were canning corn and tomatoes then.
Wholesale customers for canned corn included Daugherty & Ward, Crisfield, Del.; Fulton, Mehring & Hauser, York; Oriental Paper & Bag Co.; District Wholesale Grocery Co. and Sprague, Warner, Kenny Co., all of Washington, D.C.; Maryland Gro. Co. Baltimore, Md. and Audment Bros., Lancaster, Pa. The U.S. Government purchased both 1,500 cases of corn and 3,750 cases of tomatoes, perhaps to feed World War II troops.

See below for my recent York Sunday News column on York County canners and vegetable pickers and also a photo of the Lucky cannery workers.

Undated Martin's brochure with big kettle.

OK, even though I am an avowed fan of Utz potato chips, I feel obligated to give Martin's equal time. Some of my best friends, and even beloved family members, like Martin's best. (As most York Countians know you are an "Utz person" or "Martin's person," rarely both.)

Herr's, Lays, and Middleswarth have small, but faithful, bands of followers in the area. There is also a lot of lingering nostalgia for Charles Chips, similar to Utz, and Senft's, a Martin's kettle cooked type. (Martin's do make a traditional type chip now, but all the stalwarts I know swear by the kettle cooked.)

Did Martin's start up as a very small enterprise in the 1930s or '40s, like most of the rest of the local chip manufacturers?

You might not to be too surprised to find Civil War artifacts in York County around Hanover, where Union General Kilpatrick met up with Confederate General Stuart, or near Wrightsville, where Union troops dug in to defend the bridge crossing the Susquehanna River against Confederate General Gordon. But--a cannonball in northern York County?

The article accompanying the photo above, from microfilm at the York County Heritage Trust Library/Archives of the July 2, 1948 York Dispatch, reads:

Elaine Ryan/Sister Mary Clare

St. Joseph's Convent outside of Columbia is closing. The convent building has been sold, with plans to turn it into affordable housing for either single mothers or seniors. The Sisters there, members of the Adorers of the Blood of Christ community, must move to another building on the property.

The York County connection? Sister Mary Clare, a long-time resident of the convent, started out life as Mildred Reineberg of York and took a roundabout route from here to there.

York Daily Record image of 1976 Freedom Train in York

In my recent York Sunday News column and blog post on the very successful visit of the 1948 Freedom Train, I said that the 1976 Freedom Train didn't stop here. That wasn't quite accurate, as pointed out by a reader who said that her dad was an engineer on the train, and the family saw him when it stopped here. It did stop, just not for long.

York wasn't on the exhibit schedule, but the 1976 Freedom Train did do a brief "whistle stop" here on July 1, 1976. It wasn't open to the public, but paused for perhaps 45 minutes. It on the way to the Harrisburg area stop at New Cumberland from July 2-5 from the previous stop of June 29-30 at Cumberland, Maryland. One reason, perhaps the main reason, for the stop seems to have been so Mamie Eisenhower could get off the train and be driven back to her home at Gettysburg,where she had earlier boarded.

The York Sunday News editorial that week had read:

Freedom Train Scrapbooks

In a recent York Sunday News column I wrote about the 1948 Freedom Train visit to York. I mentioned that there were scrapbooks about the train at the York County Heritage Trust Library/Archives.

There are two scrapbooks, created by junior high students. They won first and second place for the best scrapbooks on the Freedom Train. Each volume is about one and a half inches thick. According to markers still in the books, First prize was won by Nancy Rahe and second place by Donna Springer.

I was pleased to recently hear from Nancy Rahe Lipschutz. The email she sent is quoted, with her permission, below:

Remember Charles Chips?

I have been posting brief histories of York County potato chip makers and fellow blogger Jim McClure has touched on them too. Jim took the subject to the York Daily Record online Exchange community forum, which has stirred up more chip discussion. One exchanger commented on the home-delivered Charles Chips. That brings up memories for my family.

When my children were growing up, the Charles Chips man stopped by our house regularly, bring a one pound tin of very fresh chips and picking up the empty tin. We kept it on top of the refrigerator, probably to save space as well as to keep short young people from overindulging. I remember them as being similar to Utz chips, my favorite.

My husband remembered helping a relative who had a Charles Chips route deliver to homes in Red Lion, including the day a tin escaped and rolled the whole way down East High Street from Main Street to the borough limits.

Who made Charles Chips and what happened to them?