November 2005 Archives

People usually overlook "The Big Inch" because it runs underground.

Few know that this major petroleum pipeline and its smaller neighbor travel across York County on their way to the East Coast.

"The Big Inch" and "Little Big Inch" have been buried under county soil since the World War II years.

A reader wrote us with a question about the sycamore trees lining the Susquehanna Trail in stretches between York and Maryland.

He had heard they were planted in memory of World War I soldiers and was seeking details.

I wrote an editorial titled “Don’t celebrate York’s surrender" for the York Daily Record on Nov. 25.

The editorial (see below) shows how history and journalism can squarely meet.

Also, I tried to keep in mind that students of history who practice journalism sometimes can come off as snooty.

The Columbia-Wrightsville Bridge spanning the Susquehanna River quietly passed its 75th anniversary on Veterans Day, Nov. 11.

Many stories surround the 7,500-foot-long structure, in secondary use since construction of the Wright's Ferry Bridge in 1972.

But first its vital statistics:

Wrightsville's history goes back so far -- to the first page of York County's story -- that one would think its sites have been well explained and explored.

But its strategic location affording easy access to the Susquehanna River has meant that it touches wars and most other things historical. This adds up to a lot of stuff to see.

A Walt Partymiller cartoon will appear in an upcoming catalogue detailing the papers of Ava Helen and Linus Pauling, holder of two Nobel Prizes.

Partymiller drew editorial page cartoons for The Gazette and Daily in York for 30 years and developed a national reputation along with his boss, J.W. Gitt, during the Cold War.

Jerry Ambrose wondered recently about why York’s stretch of Route 30 is known as Arsenal Road.

I wasn't aware of a true arsenal ever being there.

I checked with a local historian, and she confirmed my best thinking.

During World War II, York Safe and Lock, later operated by the U.S. Navy and Blaw-Knox, made Bofors anti-aircraft guns. These guns were widely used on Navy ships. (Part of the Harley-Davidson plant now occupies this building,)

A second explanation might come from the U.S. Army Reserves facility near Route 30.

If anyone can enlighten Jerry — and me — on this, please post.

My Sunday column on Flo Snyder’s poetic contributions to Allied war effort in World War II is an example of journalism meeting history.

I came across the young woman’s writings in research on a World War II book.

Sixty years after her writing appeared in York Corporation newsletters, I interviewed her for a York Sunday News column.

The column included material from the past — history work — and information about what Flo Snyder has done up to the present day — journalistic work.

The work of a journalist and historian is a continuum.

It’s just fun to work in both worlds. Or is it one world?

Yorkblog.com features blog-only entries or stories and commentary from the York Daily Record/Sunday News.

A Veterans Day editorial in Friday’s newspaper touts a different twist. We cobbled material originally part of several “York Town Square" entries to form the core of the editorial. It was an early effort here in reverse publishing — writing for the Web and then repurposing that material for the newspaper.

These are early steps into the future, not that we’re sweating the present. York Daily Record/Sunday News circulation was solid on weekdays, Saturdays and Sundays, according to the last audited period.

Our blog-entries-turned-into-editorial ...

Every time I hear that another rowhouse has succumbed to flames in York, I think about how many families called that place home in its 100 or so years of existence.

York’s long strings of attached homes were built for families of factory workers during the height of the Industrial Revolution.

Although York sees itself as a Revolutionary War town, much of its housing stock comes from the Victorian era.

I’ve kept my eye on one row house for years — 531 Thomas St.

A blogger pointed out that a good candidate for an overlooked county treasure is the now-headless statue on Salem Square in that part of York City.

Good point.

The York-area boasts few odes to the Civil War to begin with, so we should treasure them all.

But what war does the statue celebrate? See controversy below.

York Corporation, later York International and Johnson Controls, made essential machinery for the production of plutonium as part of the Manhattan Project.

So reports longtime Dallastown resident Charlie Raab, who worked as a metallurgist for York Corporation during World War II. The Manhattan Project produced the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945... .