1940s: August 2008 Archives

Four York Water employees: Leroy Chronister, Gerry Bolton, James Johnson, and Alexander Wilson work to repair the break.
The recent broken 10-inch water main in South George Street has been repaired and the street resurfaced. The ride there was bumpy for a while, but minor compared to the havoc caused when a 20-inch main, carrying water at 80 pounds of pressure a square inch, burst 60 years ago.

An estimated million gallons of water gushed from that break at Springettsbury Avenue and Newberry Street in October 1948. It created a crater at that intersection that was 20 feet deep by 20 feet wide by 30 feet long.

A couple of weeks ago I received an email from a childhood friend who has lived in California for many years. She found a photo postcard that had belonged to her York County grandmother and wondered if I knew anything about the Brook Leaf Love Nest. I remembered that my family had one of those postcards too and that the photograph of the house in the tree had fascinated me as a child.