Recently in Freedom Train Category

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:

York Welcomes the Freedom Train--that's the title of the 40 page narrative report written for York's 1948 Freedom Train Committee by Anna Lynch Morris. The cover above shows the streamlined train that carried precious documents of freedom on a nationwide tour from 1947 to 1949.

York Countians embraced the opportunity with their usual enthusiasm and organization. They even rolled out York's Liberty Bell for the opening. A special train car filled exclusively with York County history was put together by staff and volunteers of the Historical Society of York and displayed alongside the freedom train. Downtown merchants gave out information on the history of their locations, such as the Bon-Ton, site of Hall & Sellers printing press and Woolworth's, site of a German Reformed church service attended by George Washington. Schools were involved with displays and programs, including radio broadcasts. The list of activities goes on and on.

See below for my recent York Sunday News column on the October 9, 1948 Freedom Train visit and for more photos of the train and crowd. The photos were taken by Gazette & Daily newspaper photographers that day.

Please share your own memories of that historic visit in the comment section below.

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?