York really is the center of the universe, especially when you consider its place in historical events. Local historian June Lloyd looks at how things have converged on our hometown, past and present.
Photo from 1928 York Gazette & Daily microfilm at York County Heritage Trust.
O.K., so maybe a lot of moms don’t bake apple pie anymore, but baseball is still big in York County, PA.
Glen Rock native Cliff Heathcote, who played in the major league from 1918 to 1932, shows up in a lot of the record books. In fact, one of his records may never be broken.
The above images from the 1985 York Daily Record story were supplied to the newspaper by Gary L. Klinedinst.
A few older folks might still remember the spectacular train wreck at Centerville, just outside of Glen Rock that Friday afternoon of April 2, 1920. A February 1985 York Daily Record article captured Rev. Millard R. Kroh’s vivid memory of the day.
It seems like every year we hear of York County connections to the premier Westminster Kennel Club dog show. Just this year a toy poodle from Dillsburg named Vikki won the best of breed to make it to the finals.
Did you know that York County dogs and their owners have been bringing home prizes from the show since its infancy? The following report is from the February 14, 1908 York Gazette:
We didn’t know how bad smoking was for our health 90 years ago, when cigar factories were springing up everywhere. In York County, we knew cigars were very good for our economy. For well over 150 years, processing tobacco into cigars kept many York Countians gainfully employed.
Lewis Miller illustrated a group of youths, himself among them, making cigars in 1811 at the shop of “William Spangler, Tobacconist.” They were Henry Sheffer, John Lehman, Jacob Weiser, Lewis Miller, Daniel Masse, Daniel Wolf, Emanuel Sheffer, John Jones, and Henry Wagner. Miller would have been around 15 at the time. Some of the boys look quite a bit younger.
According to the Red Lion Area Historical Society webpage, in the month of October 1929, 15 million cigars were shipped out of the Red Lion train station on the Maryland and Pennsylvania Railroad. This wouldn’t have included the millions more made each month in factories large and small in York and just about every community in the county.
My grandfather, Edwin Shelley, converted a three-story house into a cigar factory in Lucky, Chanceford Township. Grandpa wasn’t alone as shown in the following Gazette article from the fall of 1917:
One hundred and twenty-five years ago there was excitement in Glen Rock, according to an article in the Glen Rock Item, which was reprinted in the York Gazette of November 28, 1882.
A new steam engine had arrived to bring York County agriculture into the automated age. According to the tone of awe in which the article is written, this might have been one of the first steam engines in that area. It certainly seems to have been the first traction steam engine, one that could move under its own power, ever seen climbing the hills of Glen Rock, as the following description attests:
