October 2006 Archives

One of York County's older McDonald's is moving to capture traffic at a new hot spot about a mile north of its current location.

The owners of the Route 74 McDonald's, not far from West York High School, is building a new store in the Target shopping center in West Manchester Township. This is a case study in how sprawl is creeping outward in a radius around York.

Q. When did the York area get its first McDonald's restaurant?...

If a newspaper had tried to cover York in the 30-day period in the fall of 1777, its staff would have gone nuts.

Was there a day when York County’s fertile soil swallowed a steam shovel?

That story has an aura of urban legend to it. It reminds one a little of a prevalent myth around Wrightsville that a worker on the Columbia-Wrightsville Bridge fell into some cement and was left there. In fact, people in Wrightsville have been known to teasingly tell boaters that if they look at a certain bridge support, they can see the outline of a boot.

Anyway, Garland Sweitzer queried about the bulldozer incident, which he heard from credible sources. Ring a bell with anyone? Please reply.

The facts, according to Garland:

York Daily Record/Sunday News photographer captured the renovated Cross Mill on video.

Past operators of the Wallace-Cross Mill scored some interesting roles for their resumes.

Alexander Wallace's two daughters took over operation of their father's grist mill near Cross Roads a couple of years after his death in 1861.

Alexander Wallace had operated the southeastern York County mill for about two decades, and his daughters carried on his legacy until 1895. The Wallace sisters are unusual. Women typically are not involved in the hard labor of milling in these days.

But one of them gained another distinction.

David Rusk was not the only provocative speaker at the York City Human Relations Commission's 25th Annual Frederick D. Holliday banquet this week.

Retired York City Schools administrator Julia Hines-Harris stated point blank that Holliday, former city schools superintendent, did not commit suicide inside a Cleveland school in 1985.

After his seven-year stint in York, Doc Holliday, respected by many in York, left Pennsylvania to head schools in Plainfield, N.J., and then Cleveland.

Harris provided several arguments to support her view, including:

Early in a speech this week in York, consultant David Rusk provided a provocative statistic:

York County had 499 slaves in 1790.

Morgan State's Debra Newman Ham has pointed out that York County ranked second to Philadelphia statewide in number of slaves and number of freed slaves. (For a sampling of this York native's work, just Google her name.)

Why would York County rank so high? ...

Consultant and author David Rusk provided a slew of stats during a speech this week.

They supported his overarching point: The abilities of classmates are a prime factor behind a particular student's achievement in the classroom. If those of low income or abilities are segregated by zoning laws and other such public policies, then achievement is difficult. If low-income students are spread out into more diverse classes, they'll perform as well as other students.

Rusk gave one possible exception:

OK, quick York Town Square review quiz.

The Dreamwrights have opened their new house to the public.

The theater group recently remodeled their building, a former market house where west end farmers could sell their goods to residents of surrounding neighborhood.

At one time, five market houses served as the hub for York County's farmers to sell their wares.

Where were York's other four covered market houses? ...

Gov. George M. Leader signs plans on March 19, 1958, for constructing the dam which formed the lake that became the centerpiece of Gifford Pinchot State Park in northern York County. Legislative aid and brother Henry B. Leader looks on. The location was chosen, according to The Gazette and Daily where this photograph was taken, because it was equidistant between York and Harrisburg.

The picture shows two York County brothers signing final dam plans for the lake that would keynote Gifford Pinchot State Park.

Gov. George M. Leader and legislative aide Henry B. Leader looked proud in a photograph published nearly 50 years ago in The Gazette and Daily on March 19, 1958.

They were doing something good for their home county... .

Want to debate the York County manufacturer of yore who left the most impressive legacy?

Two from the 19th-century immediately come to the top of my list: P.H. Glatfelter I and S. Morgan Smith... .

Q. Was there ever a time that York County residents supported a tax?

A. Yes. Can you believe it? But you have to go back a few years... .

Lewis Miller, 19th-century artist/carpenter, left a rich legacy of drawings documenting 19th-century York County.

Because of his work, we know more about what life was like around here in the 1800s.

It’s fun to try to figure out who will become 20th and 21st-century Lewis Millers... .

A footnote to the last York Town Square post on moving the Elmwood Mansion:

As the three-story Spring Garden Township house was rolling along on its 500-foot journey atop greased logs, Catherine Small Keesey and others in her family had to find temporary lodging.

The moved into Mrs. Large’s boarding house on East Market Steet.

Keesey explained in her booklet “My Town and I" that Catherine and others in the Small family enjoyed a group dinner each night.

“This does not sound like a true story but I can assure you it is," Catherine wrote. “Each night at dinner there were Mrs. Large and her daughter, Miss Large, my mother, Mrs. Small and two Misses Small, and I saw beside a Mr. Bigger!" ...

Memorial Hospital's Elmwood Mansion has not always been at its current site near Interstate 83 in Spring Garden Township.

It originally stood about where Memorial Hospital now stands.

Ann Small Niess, whose family owned the house for decades, is writing a detailed account of the house from when it was constructed in the early 1800s to when she last lived there in 1947 and through its renovation by Memorial Hospital.

But she has a research problem... .

With housing growing in York Township's Ore Valley like mile-a-minute vines, Camp Betty Washington Road is getting heavier use.

What was Camp Betty Washington and who loaned her name to the camp?

An unsourced document in York County Heritage Trust archives tells the camp's story:

Russell A. Wentz's 90-plus years have allowed him to cross paths with many people of importance in York County's past.

His memories of Henry E. Lanius, longtime state legislator from Spring Grove and champion for the visually impaired, are still sharp. (Search "York County lawmaker fought to aid the blind" in York Town Square archives.)

He wrote about Lanius, who was himself blind, in the Ripplet, newsletter of the Spring Grove Area Historical Preservation Society, in May 2000.

Wentz remembers visiting Lanius, 1882-1943, on the floor of the State Senate in the 1930s. The handshake with this legislative veteran stuck in Wentz's memory 70 years later... .

The York Daily Record’s story on Steven E. Stauffer's recent death - after he fell 20 feet from a tree stand - contained a sentence that brought back memories.

It said Stauffer, 27, of Dover, was about the same age as his 3-year-old son when his own father died in an electrical accident in Jefferson.

Gregory A. Stauffer, a Jefferson firefighter, died in the line of duty... .

In 1999, Ron Hershner wrote "Cross Roads: A History and Reminiscenses," an insightful story of a York County town.

Now, the York attorney and authority on southeastern York County has turned out the best history of a single county congregation that I've seen with his "Round Hill Presbyterian Church, 250 Years of Faith." ...

The Moving Wall provide a moving moment for many during its recent stay in Fawn Grove.

The half-size replica of the Washington, D.C., Vietnam Veterans Memorial reminded visitors of the 101 York countians who went but did not return. About 11,500 York countians who served during the war in Southeast Asia.

Perhaps the most poignant glimpse at York countians' sacrifice came in “Life" magazine's June 1969 roll call of those killed in the Vietnam War in one week. Thomas R. Bliss of York was one of those pictured. So was Jeffrey A. Richardson of Red Lion... .

A York Daily Record story on an errant driver's crash into Jefferson's peaceful town square last week indicated that the main monument was untouched.

The square's big monument, topped by a World War I soldier, celebrates the two Jefferson men who died in the war -- Horatio Smith and Edward Swartzbaugh. It also observes the 22 other men who fought.

The grassy square also contains a World War I field piece, similar to the gun melted down in Spring Grove for scrap during World War II. It's unusual to find a World War I memorial in York County, much less one in or near a town's center.

But the damaged monument, now resting on its back in the square, had meaning, too... .

After you've visited Round Hill Presbyterian Church in Cross Roads, consider other points of interest in the Chanceford Township-area of southeastern part of York County in your Sunday afternoon drive. (See previous post: "Get around to seeing ornate Round Hill church.")

-- Hershaull Park, near Round Hill church, sports a ball field that abuts a cornfield. Put in bleachers, and it's a small-scale version of that famous field from "Field of Dreams. ... "

I've looked at a lot of photos capturing the Susquehanna River but saw a bunch of new images at a preview of an exhibit this week.

One photograph, in particular, caught my attention. It showed two iron bridge spans standing in the middle of the river amid the wreckage of their wooden counterparts.

Here's the background:

After Union troops burned the Susquehanna River bridge to keep rebel invaders on the west bank in 1863, about six years passed before another structure spanned the river between York and Lancaster counties.

Someone came up with idea of installing two iron spans near mid-river. If the bridge again was ignited, the loss would be 50 percent, at most.

But in 1896, a cyclone blew down that mile-long covered bridge. That is, all but the iron spans... .

In one well-researched book, Ron Hershner helped Round Hill Presbyterian Church celebrate its 250th anniversary this year and made a real contribution toward helping others understand the county.

Hershner, a York attorney who has authoritatively written on his native southeastern York County, worked through the Cross Roads church's long history in his 125-plus-page "Round Hill Presbyterian Church, 250 Years of Faith." He thereby raised the profile of church's architecturally significant building. (To order, see http://www.yorkheritage.org).

If there’s a better done community-level museum in York County than Spring Grove’s, it would be interesting to see it. (This doesn't count the county-wide York County Heritage Trust.)

Museum curators display all sorts of things, even have a gas mask for a horse, circa World War II.

The Spring Grove Area Historical Preservation Society has divided its 7,300 artifacts into three rooms with schools, community and heritage themes.

Here are several items on display in this 3,000-square-foot, all volunteer museum: ...

A recent York Daily Record story on renewed interest in learning Pennsylvania German bears all kinds of lessons for York County today.

Primarily, we're less than 100 years away from those days in which church services were regularly conducted in German. And these German wars sparked considerable conflict in area churches... .

As part of a recent tour of historic East York, guide and East York native Dan Meckley provided a copy of the East Ender.

He and fellow Hiestand School eighth-grader David Levin teamed up to edit the newsletter-like publication.

As a sign of the times, The East Ender published individual eighth-grade test scores that showed all 15 class members graduated to the next grade at Phineas Davis school.

Levin signed his list of bequeaths - "Charles Lambert’s ability to blow off hot air (through the clarinet) to Walter Grim" - “David Levin.DU.MB." ...

Two Springettsbury Township icons made the news over the weekend.

York Sunday News readers received a tour of historic East York. http://www.ydr.com/search/ci_4426207

Saturday readers also gained news about the closing of the Coca-Cola bottling plant, which had joined nearby East York in the outskirts of York when scarcely anything else was out there. http://www.ydr.com/search/ci_4422038

In memory of the Coke plant, here's a trivia question concerning another bottler that effectively called attention to itself during the heyday of local bottlers: ... .