Recently in 1960s Category

El-Ge/Eagle/Frito-Lay Plant on Gillespie Drive

When I started researching York County potato chips, I didn't realize how much I would find, and I'm still only scratching the surface. I haven't even gotten to my favorite yet, Utz. Previous posts covered Bon-Ton/Bickel's and Senft's.

Fellow blogger Jim McClure did address Martin's the other day. The other current York County chip makers, like Hanover Brands' Bickel's and Frito-Lay, have their fans, but most people I know are passionate about their Utz's or Martin's. Workplaces and families are divided into two camps by these chips, and rarely will you find someone who loves, or even tolerates, them both. (For all you fellow Utz fans that bemoaned along with me that you could only find Martin's at York's Central Market, I was excited today to find that a new pizza stand, Popi Joe's, on the Clark Avenue side of the market sells Utz's chips at a very reasonable price.)

This post concerns another York County brand of the past, El-Ge, and where they were and where they went.

A little while ago, in a post on York Fair horse racing, I mentioned that there were some motion pictures of racing at the fair on films recently digitized and preserved by the York County Heritage Trust Library/Archives, through a grant from the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission.

Charles and Carrye Noss editing film. Note the movie camera at left.

Those images and many more were taken and shared with the community, by Charles H. Noss and his wife Carrye Neiman Noss. From 1923 to 1960 Mr. and Mrs. Noss filmed local parades and events, such as the York Fair and the construction of the 1930s Wrightsville-Columbia Veterans Memorial Bridge across the Susquehanna River, and shared them with the community. They also traveled around the country and recorded subjects from Pennsylvania Dutch customs to national parks.

The Nosses showed the movies free of charge to churches and civic groups. An admission or offering must have been collected for the groups to keep, because a November 12, 1946 Gazette and Daily newspaper article says that by then the Mr. and Mrs. Noss had shown the films to about 132,000 persons and raised nearly $100,000 for the organizations. Since they continued the showings until Mr. Noss died in 1962, they could have conceivable raised hundreds of thousands of dollars by then.

Over the years quite a few cemeteries in York County have been built over, paved over or plowed over. Sometimes the inhabitants have been moved to another cemetery, sometimes not. There have been various laws passed over the years in Pennsylvania regarding burial grounds, but, unfortunately, in my opinion, if the owner of the land wants to remove the cemetery and goes through the proper legal channels it could still be approved by the court.

Click here for a link to the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission page on cemetery laws.

While looking through the Erb family file at the York County Heritage Trust I came across an inquiry from an Erb from another area wondering what had happened to an Erb Burial Ground in Springettsbury Township.

March, 1961 Gazette & Daily photos of Thanksgiving statues.
(See end of post for current photos of the sculptures.)

Some years ago my husband or I picked up a rectangular glass paperweight at a local antique mall. The label pasted on the back reads: "Compliments of A. L. CLAY, Dealer in General Merchandise, Coal, Sewer Pipe &c. Two Stores: YOE and DALLASTOWN, Pa."

The paperweight itself, however, commemorates a monumental building of which the whole county was proud. It reads:

Princess Street Chapel from Atlas of the City of York by Frederick Roe, 1903

A recent post told how the Ladies' Aid Society of the Princess Street Evangelical Chapel successfully carpeted their church by raising the funds with an autograph quilt in 1909.

Click here to read that post.

I was curious as to what happened to that congregation and to their building. I found a trail that illustrates how many religious groups and sites change. New congregations are formed; some disappear or merge with others. One church body outgrows a building and another moves in.

The Princess Street Chapel story fits in with all of the above.