This drawing shows Springfield Township’s Foustown, a company town built around the making of whiskey. This is not to be confused with the Foustown near Cousler Park in Manchester Township, north of York. Lightning recently mortally wounded the smokestack, the most visible vestige of the settlement’s past. The smokestack is not the one pictured here. It was built in World War II, but never used, to produce alcohol. (See photos below of the damaged stack.) Also of interest: Those 1912 drivers and other stories around Glen Rock, Pa. and Pottery put the other Foustown, the one in Manchester Township, on the map and With all those still, the York County hillbillies?
‘It took all the bricks off the top.’
That’s Staci Stayer’s description of a recent lightning strike that damaged the 125-foot-tall Foustown smokestack in Springfield Township.
“It’s going to have to come down,” a township supervisor told the York Daily Record/Sunday News.
Many people identify the smokestack because of its white-bricked “Foust” on its side.
The damaged smokestack with its familiar white-bricked ‘Foust’ on its side.
The YDR story, Foust distillery smokestack to come down, tells about a neighbhor who is collecting the white bricks that have fallen since the storm.
While this Foustown can be confused with its northern neighbor by the same name in Manchester Township, I remember them this way:
Southern York County’s Foustown made the whiskey that could be stored in Pfaltzgraff jugs made in Manchester Township’s Foustown. All this is good fun. The primary products of the two towns were made in overlapping periods – in the mid-1800s – but only a bottle and jug expert could ever attest to whether the two produccts overlapped in the same container.
Also of interest:
- Foustown now a ghost town: Raid there once netted 300 barrels of quality firewater
- Lightning also damaged smokestack at historic market in Hanover.
- Carrie Nation in York, Pa.: ‘I told them that they were maintaining a drunken men’s club’
Another view of the damaged stack. What was left standing in 1979 in founder William Foust’s honor will now come down.
Welcome to York Town Square, 8 years of daily posts about journalism and history, topics that can easily become plodding and self important. My goal is to keep this blog fun and accessible. And I try to say something in each post. I welcome your comments and respond to every one you write. Please contact me at 
It is sad to see the smoke stack will be no longer exist but requirements for safety are obvious. I never failed to look over to see it on my frequent drive on the adjacent state route – a couple of times, when accompanied by my wife/family, we would detour off our route and take the side road that went by it for a closer look….. A quiet, solid sentinel from times long ago – asking us not to forget the past.
Twilly, agreed. Surprising it stood as long as it did, exposed as it was./Jim
As a direct descendant of John and Billy Foust, I am so sad that the smokestack is coming down. That was the only thing I could relate to my Foust Heritage. I have taken pictures on several occassions, and now they will be the only thing left of this landmark for me. I hope that the current owners will be generous enough to allow a few bricks to go to John and Billy’s Grandaughter ( a few great’s go in front of that).
I hope to be there when the smokestack is taken down.
Sherri, thanks for sharing. I have this image of someone collecting all the white bricks and laying them out to spell and preserve ‘Foust.’/Jim