Recently in streets Category

Four York Water employees: Leroy Chronister, Gerry Bolton, James Johnson, and Alexander Wilson work to repair the break.
The recent broken 10-inch water main in South George Street has been repaired and the street resurfaced. The ride there was bumpy for a while, but minor compared to the havoc caused when a 20-inch main, carrying water at 80 pounds of pressure a square inch, burst 60 years ago.

An estimated million gallons of water gushed from that break at Springettsbury Avenue and Newberry Street in October 1948. It created a crater at that intersection that was 20 feet deep by 20 feet wide by 30 feet long.

Wall Street, 1903

A colleague recently asked me where Wall Street used to be in York. It doesn't appear on present-day maps. A search through old maps with a magnifying glass located a tiny little Wall Street in the 1903 Atlas of York published by Frederick B. Roe.

Part of Freystown, 1876

Maps are fascinating. They document the charges in communities over the years. You can see how residential, social, and industrial patterns evolve as an area grows, or in some cases, retracts.

I recently looked at the when and where of North, South, East, and West streets in York, Pennsylvania. Click here to read that post.

Another look at 1836, 1850, 1876, and 1903 maps of York show changes in street names as well as disappearances of whole villages as they were absorbed into the city. The southeast side of town illustrates that well:

East Street, 1903

Like many cities, York, Pennsylvania has a street named for each direction of the compass. I must admit, though, I had to look at a current atlas to find East Street, even though I go by it almost daily.

I assumed that these four streets made their appearance at the same time, marking the boundaries of the town as it grew. Wrong--as you can see from the information below gleaned from 1850, 1876, and 1903 maps of York.

Rex and Laurel Fire Companies

You think traffic gets obstructed today by double parking and delivery vehicles? At least no one, as far as I know, has constructed a building smack dab on the street since 1908. How did the Rex Fire Truck end up residing there for two weeks?

Click here to read about one of the fires to which the Rex truck responded.

From the January 1, 1908 York Gazette: