A friend and I were discussing my recent York Sunday News column on York County canning houses. I remember my father growing tomatoes in Chanceford Township for the canneries when I a small child. My friend's father had a much larger farming operation and continued farming longer than my family.
She then proceeded to tell me about the green tomato trade in the 1950s:
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.
Wouldn't you know it? As soon as I think I'm done learning about local potato chip history, something else pops up.
Did you ever think about who first came up with dispensing the little bags of potato chips and other snacks in coin operated machines? Well, guess what:
According to the August 3, 1953 York Gazette and Daily, the first successful machine was developed by staff of the El-Ge Potato Chip Company, whose York County plant is now Frito-Lay.
By the way, I did call the big Frito-Lay plant in West Manchester Township and they do make all flavors of Lay's potato chips here, as well as all flavors of Doritos. In fact the Frito-Lay website says that the York County plant produced 21 million pounds of potato chips last year.
The vending machine article reads:
Another election has just passed, this one with little fanfare. No federal offices were at stake and only judicial ones at the state level. Many county and local officies were not up for election and some of those who were had only one candidate.
The flier above for the 1924 Republican Party candidates caught my eye when I was looking through a file on elections at the York County Heritage Trust Library/Archives. The gentlemen certainly look "SAFE--SANE--STEADY."
Even though 1924 was a presidential election year, it wasn't an exciting election. The American Presidency Project shows that Coolidge won with 54% of the popular vote. Democrat John W. Davis carried only the "solid south" and Progressive candidate Robert M. LaFollette only took his native Wisconsin.
Who were these 1924 Republicans and where is the York County connection?
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This page is a archive of entries in the 1950s category from November 2009.
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