Our recent York Town Square series on York's markets just scratched the surface on their rich history.
Dave Yates, president of Central Market's board, gave a detailed speech, "Yesterday, Today & Tomorrow." to the York Economics Club in 2001.
The speech is excerpted below:
Some might have missed the death of Donald Shelley, an expert on Fraktur, on April 19. The York County native lived in Berks County, and his obituary did not appear in county newspapers.
June Lloyd, who wrote a book on a form of Pennsylvania German Fraktur in York County, credits Shelley with rediscovering the art form in the 20th century... .
In the antebellum period, rich Southerners customarily would send their daughters north of the Mason-Dixon Line to finishing schools.
Many did not make it very far north of the line, stopping 15 miles from the Pennsylvania-Maryland border at the Cottage Hill Academy on York’s north side. (See previous post, "Little Jimmy's someday might draw big crowd").
Students working under Leadership York’s tutelage are rehabbing one of York’s least-known public sites — Little Jimmy’s Park.
There’s a good reason that few know about this park, named after the donor’s son decades ago. As of today, the north side park is a triangular vacant lot surrounding two lonely trees... .
In forecasting the pending move of our newsroom in a York Sunday News column http://www.ydr.com/editor/ci_3741162, I wrote about the massive buried object that the newspaper left behind in one of its moves... .
Let’s call it a marker marked by a marker.
Hanover’s Wirt Park, a public park, is home of a Ten Commandments marker sitting on a chunk of privately owned land.
The non-profit Gitt-Moul Historic Properties’ purchase of the land has ended a multi-year controversy. Now the monument has a nearby marker of its own... .
York Town Square’s recommended site of the fortnight falls to Virtual York http://www.yorklinks.net/, a trove of information on York.
This site is full of photos of historic buildings and sites, walking tours and visitor information... .
Red Lion’s Fairmount Park is not the only overlooked part of York County known by that lofty name.
But York’s recovering Fairmount section, an early city suburb of Victorian mansions, has been deteriorating for so long that it’s understandable why many people don’t know about it.
Few venture to that north section of York.
York accepted what D.C. rejected.
That story with that theme was told in this week's York Sunday News, and it's one of my favorite stories from York County's past.
It involves renowned singer Marian Anderson performing at William Penn High School before a mixed-race audience. It happened in 1941, two years after she was rejected at Constitution Hall in Washington, D.C. She subsequently performed at the Lincoln Memorial to wide acceptance.
Interesting. Some question York's enlightment on the race question, but, in this case, York accepted Anderson at a prime venue after D.C. rejected her... .
Both stayed at the landmark Yorktowne Hotel, placed on the sales block last week.
The landmark York hotel was completed in 1925 and would soon boast of a guest register that tells a story of York County social and cultural life... .
Newspaper editors receive all kinds of questions from readers.
Here was one that required me to seek help:
Do we use soy-based ink in the York Daily Record/Sunday News?
The reader posed that question before making seed-starting pots from recycled newspaper. Her concern was the toxicity of petroleum-based inks.
The turn-of-the-century Carlisle Avenue Market represents the last of the great indoor market houses to be built.
And it's the most recent one to make the news, as the soon-to-be-renovated home of Dreamwrights, a local theater group.
So, the scorecard for the five market houses: two still in use, one demolished, and two used for different purposes.
One wonders about the future of the two still in operation: Central Market and Penn Street Farmers Market... .
Several years ago, I wrote a short history of York's Central Market for its Web site.
The most surprising fact I learned was that more than 20,000 people a week shopped at the downtown market at peak points in its heyday.
And Central Market's story includes a strange middle-of-the-night incident ...
In 1889, the Eastern Market walls took a tumble.
With it came near disaster, as described in this excerpt from “Never to be Forgotten":
A little boy and his dog play in the Eastern Market yard. The dog runs toward the building, and his young companion starts to follow when the walls fall... .
The now-demolished York City Market would have taken top prize for beauty if ranked among York's five indoor market houses.
The market, sporting a Gothic design by York's famed Dempwolf architectural firm, featured a 140-foot-high tower... .
In 1866, farmers routinely took their goods to market in York -- York County's primary market center.
That's how they gained liquidity and disposed of excess produce, fruit and meat.
In those post-Civil War Days, the most popular places in York were two open-air sheds in the town's Centre Square. Farmers also sold their wares from makeshift stands on sidewalks and from the backs of wagons around the square.
With population growth on the west side of the Codorus, sufficient buyers were available for farmers coming to town on Penn Street, present-day Roosevelt Avenue and Bull Road to save some steps... .
A former York market house is hidden in plain view.
Dreamwrights, a local theater group, is quite correctly touting rehab plans for their large brick playhouse on Carlisle Avenue.
For years, I've wondered about the original use of that beautiful building... .
York County resident Dave Yates read my blog-entry-turned-column in the York Sunday News and e-mailed his own elephant story.
But Dave's story is heart-breaking so read on with caution ... .
Ok, one more elephant story to complement two previous posts.
Again, one that can bring a tear to the eye, from the York Daily Record, 1995:
Popular Sunday trolley excursions to Highland Park were not the only activity that drew the ire of pastors at the turn of the 20th century. (See "Red Lion's towering Fairmont Park off the beaten track" post below or in York Town Square archives.)
The publication of York's first Sunday newspaper prompted pulpit protests, as evidenced from the following article I wrote as part of the York Daily Record's 200th anniversary in 1996:
Fairmont Park in Red Lion owes its existence to Highland Park in West Manchester Township, maybe 10 miles away.
The link was the trolley system that snaked throughout the county at the turn of the 20th century.
The Red Lion Centennial Commission's history said popular Sunday excursions to Highland Park sparked some ministers and churches to protest inappropriate activities on the solemn Sabbath... .
Did you know Richard Nixon's brother went to school in York County in a military uniform?
Gold coins such as this can be found everywhere in York County's past.
My past two posts tell of a couple precious moments in the county, specifically in West Manchester Township.
The township enjoys a book telling the story of one-room schools and trolley cars, better than those literary resources found in most other parts of York County.
A committee overseeing the 200th anniversary of the township in 1999 put forth one of the best of all municipal history books: "A History of West Manchester Township, York County, Pennsylvania, 1799-1999."
The thick book is packed with hundreds of photographs and stories from a township that always seemed to be in the middle of things, possibly because it is somewhere near the center of the county and straddles key transportation routes... .
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