1940s: July 2009 Archives

A friend recently gave me a some copies of Red Lion Echoes to pass on to the York County Heritage Trust Library/Archives. Her father-in-law was the editor of the newsletter, which was: "Published monthly by the Citizens of Red Lion and Vicinity" during World War II. It was send to the servicemen and women of the Red Lion area and also kept local citizens up-to-date on those troops.

I couldn't let these pieces of local history pass through my hands without reading them They bring home how the war affected just about everyone in some way.

Anyone familiar with Yoe knows it still isn't very big, somewhere around 1,000 residents now, probably a good many less in 1945. Still, as the item below from Red Lion Echoes shows, leaders can, and do, come from very small towns. It was published shortly after the war was officially over.

1940s era Bon-Ton Potato Chip photo captioned "Cooking Unit."

A fire in the potato chip line at Bickel's Snack Foods in York recently made the news. While looking through a photo file the other day at the York County Heritage Trust Library/Archives, I came across these three 1940s-era photos of the Bon-Ton Potato Chip Co. plant.

Caption reads: "Potato peeling and inspection table. Elevator to slicer on first floor."

What do the two companies have in common, besides potato chips?

York's Liberty Bell at the Freedom Train Stop

The other evening I was talking to a childhood friend who now lives in California. She said that her son and his family, who have just moved to Pennsylvania, recently visited the Liberty Bell in Philadelphia. My friend remembered seeing a Liberty Bell in York when she was a child, while touring the Freedom Train during its stop in York in the late 1940s. She wondered if that bell was the Philadelphia Liberty Bell or a replica.

I did some internet searching and found an extensive web site on both the 1947-48 Freedom Train, which stopped in York October 9, 1948 and the 1975-76 Freedom Train, which only paused for about 45 minutes on the way to Harrisburg. That web site and others revealed that a double-sized Liberty Bell was cast, at the same London foundry that cast the original, especially for the 1976-76 Freedom Train. It now sits in front of Union Station in Washington, DC. The 1947-48 Freedom Train seems to have displayed mainly documents, not artifacts.

So then, what did my friend remember from 1948?