Harry Poet and Susan Myers talk outside 615 S. Pine St., the place where York Peppermint Patties were made for nearly 50 years. The confection gave York nationwide recognition.
By now, many people know that York Peppermint Patties are no longer produced in York.
Haven't been since 1989.
Soon, they will no longer be produced in Reading.
Maybe Monterrey, Mexico.
A cool bite of history:.. .
For an upcoming compilation album, Phil Schwartz has found 26 tracks from 11 bands that performed regularly at White Oak Park, better known as The Oaks. Here are the bands he has tracks for so far: The Del-Chords; El Dantes; The Exciting Invictas; The Tranells; The Crystalaires; The Ambassadors; Seven Dwarfs; G.L. and The Vesters; The Chateaus; The Magic Monorays and The Calientes. Chris Huber, concert organizer at the Oaks in the 1960s, attributes the venue's success to The Del-Chords, pictured here. The first night The Del-Chords played the Oaks, Huber told the York Daily Record, the line to get in lasted all night long.
It started out with a query for information about White Oak Park, and it has resulted in a number of posts here of the now-defunct Manchester Township hangout.
Phil Schwartz Sr. continues to look for Oaks memorabilia from the heyday of band battles in the 1960s. He is producing a compilation album of the regulars at the Oaks: "White Oak Park - Battle of the Bands." Contact him at pschwa7845@aol.com.
Meanwhile, York Daily Record writer Jason Cox wrote a story last week about the Oaks:
Reader queries and comments about York Safe & Lock strongboxes continue to hit this blog.
Please comment below if you can answer this question: ...
Former York County journalist Gary Dutery wrote that he was "blown away" after reading Ann Niess' book on York's Elmwood Mansion.
The author lived there for years, and her intimate knowledge of the iconic York house, now Memorial Hospital's conference center, clearly impressed Dutery.
In his assessment of the book, Dutery gives insight into the author and her work (and notice the neat story about how the house determined the route of Interstate 83):
State Revenue Secretary Tom Wolf addresses the YorkCounts Summit in March. He is the latest in a string of York County residents who have held high office in Harrisburg. Wolf has since returned to his family business in York, The Wolf Organization.
Our quest for high state and federal state office holders from York County's past started when Tom Wolf was under consideration for state treasurer.
Soon thereafter, we added former state attorney general Robert P. Kane to the list.
I found more in reading the appendix to Georg Sheets' "Lawyers and Leaders: The Role of Lawyers in the Development of York County, Pennsylvania." (Order through York County Heritage Trust.
Here is Sheets' list of county residents who became state administrative officials (concentrating on lawyers) between 1950-2000 (some of which duplicates mine):
Soldiers Circle, where many Union soldiers who died at York's military hospital were buried, is seen through the gate at Prospect Hill Cemetery in this undated photograph. (Photograph courtesy of York County Heritage Trust.)
As blue and gray soldiers, bunked in hospital such as York's U.S. Army General Hospital, suffered and died in the aftermath of the Battle of Gettysburg, some of the wounded had a good life.
In researching a sequel to his "Human Interest Stories from the Gettysburg Campaign", Scott Mingus came upon an unfortunate story about William A. McCartney, listed as a York resident in his muster papers:
Susan P. Byrnes
Many people talk about writing their memoirs , but few get around to it.
Well, Susan Byrnes has gotten around to it -- and a lot of other things in her 55 years.
The York County native had her name on the side of a building -- Susan P. Byrnes Health Education Center -- to prove it... .
Two Union batteries fight on Bunker Hill, overlooking the main streets of Hanover, on June 30, 1863. The Union cannons dueled with Confederate artillery units in high positions across town. The booming cannons and screeching projectiles terrorized residents hunkered in homes. The story of how the Confederate invasion of York County in 1863 enmeshed women and children has been too little told. (Drawing courtesy, York County Heritage Trust.
In my York Sunday News column, I wrote about how Mary Jane Rewalt stared down a room full of Confederate officers who were testing her loyalty.
That occurred in her Wrightsville home during the rebel invasion of 1863, and, as I outlined in my column, that exchange represented one of many dangerous encounters between rebel troops and their York County captives.
But on a national level, she is better known as author Gore Vidal's grandmother.
June Lloyd, archivist emeritus of the York County Heritage Trust, links the heroic Mrs. Rewalt with Gore Vidal:
This scene, in a York County Heritage Trust photo, appears to show the gazebo still standing in 1866 near the demolished buildings that made up the U.S. Army General Hospital in York. About 200 military patients died at the hospital, and many are buried at Soldiers Circle, commemorated by a monument.
Intrepid researcher Scott Mingus has put a face on one of those who died at York's Civil War military hospital.
Mingus shared a regimental history entry on Frank Rollins, serving with the First Minnesota in first day fighting at Gettysburg.
Simply put, Rollins ran into a Confederate buzzsaw.
The 22-year-old had had been a soldier for only nine days... .
This scene could come from the Smoky Mountains. But York Daily Record photographer Bil Bowden captured this near old Lock 12 on the Susquehanna and Tidewater Canal. Lock 12 Recreation Park lies north of the Norman Wood Bridge, spanning the Susquehanna River. Background post: Photographer tramps to far reaches of York County.
Earlier this week, Bil Bowden treated readers of this blog to a view of the old York County Courthouse, framed by the new baseball stadium.
Today, he shows a far different view of York County. Those who don't get out to see the three corners of York County (yes, it's triangular in shape, loosely speaking) are missing scenes such as these... .
An owner of a vintage strongbox from York Safe & Lock is seeking information about it.
One note about this particular safe made by the venerable and now-defunct York County manufacturer that differentiates it from those owned by several others who have made queries to this blog: the owner has the combination to open this safe.
If you can help, e-mail the inquirer directly or comment below:
I am trying to obtain historical information about a vintage York safe which
I have had for many years. Only recently have I studied it carefully and
decided to try to find out more about its history and value.
This safe is in mint condition, measuring 21" in depth, 22" in width, and
32" in height... .
A marker designates home plate at York's new baseball stadium. Will the first pitch drive a stake through the heart of a sad body of York history?
Ugh, I hadn't previously connected the demise of the minor league baseball York White Roses in 1969 with that summer of unrest that we know today as the race riots.
But there was the link, in a brief history of York baseball writer by York Daily Record/Sunday News writer Jim Seip this week.
The impact of that terrible summer of 1969 keeps emerging. Perhaps the first pitch at the first home game of the York Revolution this summer will bury that link to one of York's moments solidly beneath the bedrock undergirding Sovereign Stadium's home plate.
Here is that brief history:
The York Charrette gets high billing in the mural "Civil Rights Heroes of York" . Some believe the 1970 charrette headed off a third summer of violence forecast by a series of stabbings at William Penn High School.
When it comes to school violence, York County history immediately points to a machete-wielding madman and a troubled teen who launched attacks in separate incidents in Red Lion schools.
But school violence hit the county long before these 21st-century assaults, elevated again because of the assault this week at Virginia Tech.
In early April 1970, William Penn High School and all city schools shut down. The closure occurred after the stabbings of three students at the high school... .
Dorothy E. King talks with an audience at Holocaust Remembrance Day at York's Temple Beth Israel Sunday. The playwright is a native of York.
Dorothy E. King's play "Mr. Dr. Lehrer Friend" highlighted Holocaust Remembrance Day observances at York's Temple Beth Israel on Sunday.
The York native's production parallels the experiences of Jews and blacks under oppression and brings in Bamberg, S.C., as a location. Bamberg was the home of many black families who came to York to work in factories in the 1920s and 1930s.
King's appearance in her hometown may pique interest in a dramatist who history will fondly remember... .
The old York County Courthouse looms in the distance as the York Revolution's new home goes up along Arch Street last week.
This photograph ran on the York Daily Record/Sunday News weekly York Revolution page today. Page 7D.
But perhaps it deserved better display, as a potentially iconic picture of what's happening in downtown York.
The turn-of-the-20th-century courthouse, recently remodeled, is seen in Bil Bowden's photograph through the frame of the new baseball stadium.
The stadium represents all the city's best hopes for the future... .
Remember those three Gettysburg monuments attacked by vandals about a year ago?
About $39,000 has been donated thus far to repair them.
Gettysburg National Park officials have updated the monument refurbishings:
Blaw-Knox's Naval Ordnance Depot, successor of York Safe & Locks, was one of the newsmakers that occupied a spot in Codorus narrows north of World War II-era York. The area where the creek cuts through the hills has long been a site of activity in York County, including home of current occupant of the old Naval Ordnance building, Harley-Davidson. Here, servicemen from Philadelphia's Naval Incentive Division "inspect" Twin Bofors, 400 mm anti-aircraft guns, with the aid of some women workers. (For a look at Quad Bofors, see photograph below.)
An e-mailer responded to my recent column on the Codorus narrows with some memories:
Living away from York for many years, I particularly enjoy reading
your excellent historical pieces on my hometown.Your recent piece on the Codorus Narrows brought to mind a visit home
a few years ago, when I woke to the sight of excavation on the
hillside directly west from our family home. The hill, long being
gobbled up by a quarry on the creekside had been scraped clear for a
townhouse development to the east and south... .
"The Six Million" memorial, in the background, welcomes visitors to York's Jewish Community Center.
A haunting, memorable visit on any Sunday afternoon drive (tour route) is to see "The Six Million" memorial at the Jewish Community Center.
Internationally recognized sculptor Don Briddell produced the 20-foot by 9-foot Holocaust memorial.
The sculpture, unveiled in May 1997, was molded in clay, cast in resin and then painted.
A brochure Six Million accompanying the sculpture is right on in saying the work portrays an endless sea of men, women and children as they step forward from the darkness of the past into the light of today's world.
Their faces seem real, taken from photographs of those who died in the Holocaust... .
The York County Heritage Trust owns and sometimes displays 16 panels linking to York County in the American Revolution. They were painted in 1927, the 150th anniversary of the Continental Congress' visit to York. This panel of the Marquis de Lafayette is another in that series, on display at the Lafayette Club in York. This captures the toast in which the marquis supported George Washington as commander in chief, discussed years later in Lafayette's memoirs.
A commenter to a recent post says she's obsessed with the Marquis de Lafayette, who visited York twice during his long life. She even said she's getting contact lenses to reflect the marquis' eye color.
Whether the commenter was real or just spamming is unknown.
Eighty-nine years later, people still talk about the fruit train wreck on the Northern Central Railroad in Seven Valleys.
It was 8 p.m. on a war-weary July night in 1918.
Seven Valleys was the place. Specifically, at the railroad cut in this southcentral York County hamlet.
A northbound train laden with fruit - York County's orchards and gardens and canneries were in full production - stopped near the borough's station.
Air brake problems.
A second fruit train rolled along at an unsuspecting pace a few minutes later.
The engineer slowed down but didn't put enough pressure on the brakes. The locomotive plowed into back of the stationary train... .
Springdale Mansion anchored York's south side from when it was built at Congressman Charles Barnitz's residence in 1828 to when it was demolished in 1954. See drawing of the mansion's carriage house below. (Photos courtesy, York County Heritage Trust.) Background post: Former Hahn mansion: 'I thought it would make the most spectacular funeral home' and About Davy Crockett at Springdale Mansion: 'He is the biggest fool I ever saw'.
Spingdale Mansion figured prominently as part of a York tour presented in my York Sunday News column. See 'A Sunday drive through York's past'.
Some additional details about Springdale that I did not include because of space:
-- The Springdale estate, under Grier Hersh's ownership, expanded to 400 acres from Boundary Avenue to Violet Hill.
-- York's first golf course was part of that estate. York College later was built on part of that golf course.
-- York Hospital sits on land that was formerly part of the estate.
-- Charles Pechenek acquired the Springdale property from the Hersh estate in 1945, and remodeled the carriage house into his own residence.
-- He demolished the now-deteriorating mansion in 1954.
-- Fully built up, the mansion included 40 rooms.
-- Here's a description of the mansion's ballroom, from a Springdale booklet at the York County Heritage Trust:
York officials produced this broadside to awaken the citizenry when Confederate forces approached the Mason-Dixon Line in August and September 1862. (Courtesy, York County Heritage Trust)
The Battle of Antietam raged near Sharpburg, Md., but its impact was felt --and heard -- about 75 miles way in York.
Here are some of the connections between Antietam and York, adapted from my "East of Gettysburg":
Scott L. Mingus Sr. has produced another book in a series capturing little-known or unknown stories surrounding famous battles.
His "Human Interest Stories from Antietam" Antietam book is now available, complementing his work on the Battle of Gettysburg.
Here are two examples from his Antietam work, including the story about a Confederate cow:
Women's Club building owner Eric Salzano displays one of two valuable paintings he saved from a blaze at the historic building.
The ornate Women's Club of York building made the news this week because of an almost catastrophic electrical fire that damaged the building.
Looks like the owner plans to rehab it, which would mean that the leasee, the venerable Women's Club, will be able to keep meeting there.
The Women's Club building is one of York's most beautiful structures. Here's Daily Record writer Jennifer Vogelsong's story updating the building, before the fire... .
Artist Lewis Miller produced these drawings (and one below) and 19 others of York County residents in the 19th century who were former German soldiers fighting for the British in the Revolutionary War. Descendents of these Hessians live in York County today. (These drawings courtesy of York County Heritage Trust.)
Jonathan Stayer, profiled in a recent post State Archives, made a interesting contribution to York County history in his 1988 master's thesis. Its title explains why: "The Hessians of Lewis Miller: Assimilation of German Soldiers in America After the Revolution."
Artist Lewis Miller captured a group of these German mercenaries on paper, and Stayer researched and wrote about them. Today, Stayer heads the reference section of the State Archives, part of the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission.
Generally, these "Hessians" were deserters from the German armies, who found their way to York County, according to Stayer. Some of them, such as Leonard Baumgardner, served in Armand's Legion of the Continental Army after leaving his German unit.
Some of the Hessians stayed behind at war's end and, aided by a predominant German culture, assimilated into the fabric of York County life.
One of the most prominent Hessians, Frederick Valentine Melsheimer, a chaplain, became a noted McAllister's Town - later Hanover - minister. He gained national stature in entomology for his study and collection of insects... .
This mural, part of the York County Heritage Trust's Murals of York series, traces William C. Goodridge's life from bondage to freedom as a prominent part of 19th-century York County life. Goodridge may have temporarily left town during the Confederate campaign of 1863, but his business operated until 1865. This large panel is on a West Market Street building.
No question freed slaves living north of the Mason-Dixon Line had to be concerned about kidnappers who would carry them back into bondage.
A York Sunday News story details the life of Kitty Payne finding freedom, who was freed in 1843, moved to Adams County, kidnapped and transported to Virginia, and eventually returned to Adams County.
When the Confederates crossed the Mason-Dixon line in the Pennsylvania Campaign of 1863, they did not discern between freedman and fugitives... .
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