As a local historian, writer and photo-
grapher, I look at York County’s history in visual terms. For more than 15 years I’ve been enamored with local buildings and the stories behind their facades – from prominent architecture to non-assuming buildings, their walls and roofs are filled with stories just waiting to be told. Whether giving a downtown York walking tour, exploring the history of a local building for my job at the Nutec Group, or taking photos for an upcoming coffee table book, I’m always looking for those unique “windows” into York County’s past and present. — Scott Butcher
In 1991, I enrolled in an architectural appreciation class. The focus was modern architecture, but the term paper was open to any period in architecture. As the paper was worth 85% of the total grade, choosing the "perfect" topic was vital. I decided to catalog downtown York architecture - styles present, notable buildings, notable architects.
As it happened, at the time I was also studying photography - a hobby external from my collegiate studies in marketing. I was able to combine my newfound hobby with my interest in York's historic architecture. I walked up and down and up and down the streets of York taking countless photos. Of course, this was well before the digital revolution in photography, so it was an expensive project, paying for the film and all the processing.
I completed my paper over a month before the end of the semester, turned it in, and got an "A" - allowing me to coast through the final few weeks of my last semester. (And yes, I heard the jeers of "geek" from my fellow classmates, who were still scratching their heads as to what their term papers would be about.)
Many years went by, and I found myself on the marketing committee of the York County Convention & Visitors Bureau. An opportunity to write the visitors guide arose, and I dusted off my camera and began walking the streets of York. Again. But this time, I was taking photographs for potential publication in the York County Visitors Guide. But still, I was drawn to the architecture. The beautiful, historic architecture.
After working on the guide for several years, I decided to create a virtual tour of York, focusing on the buildings: www.virtualyork.com. I'm certainly not a Web designer, but know enough to get by. The Virtual York site was launched six years ago. In this world of Flash and Java and fancy Web sites that should be updated continually, the Virtual York Web site is somewhat of a dinosaur. Yet I'm still amazed by the traffic through the Web site. Over 535,000 people have visited the site, and roughly 1800 new visitors stop by every week. Well, the site is out-of-date, has some incorrect information, and generally needs a tune-up, which I started to do several years ago.
But the tune-up kept growing and growing, and suddenly I began thinking in different terms: "What if I made this into a book?"
All this time technology was changing and buildings were being renovated - so I again walked the streets of York with a camera - from 35mm to 4 MP digital to 8 MP digital - but I also began exploring the architecture of York County. I began "shopping" for a publisher for the architecture book.
