The Susquehanna Trail – the Road of Never-Ending Delight?
At the end of 2008, Jim McClure’s York Town Square blog featured a big post looking at the Susquehanna Trail as it heads north through the county.
In it, he mentions an unusual publication. He quotes from a 1997 YDR story: “Williamsport’s Chamber of Commerce promoted the road by yet another name. It did so in a booklet, ‘The Susquehanna Trail,’ published in 1930 and in previous years. Williamsport was promoting its hotels as ideal stopping places between Washington, D.C., and Niagara Falls, N.Y.”
I recently found a copy of that exact booklet!
What’s great is that our main north-south throughway, the Trail, is described on it as “the Road of Never-Ending Delight.” What a thought!
It’s a fascinating booklet. I love how it starts: “No Valley in the entire continent exceeds in beauty that of the Susquehanna. … It is a panorama of hills, of contributing valleys and of pine and hemlock clothed mountains.”
It goes on to describe the road itself: “Taking its name from the Susquehanna Valley which it traverses for nearly a hundred miles, the Susquehanna Trail is an unbroken concrete ribbon four hundred and fifty miles long, connecting the most important two places in America – Washington, the capitol of the nation; Niagara, the wonder of the world.”
Well, at least when the booklet was published, that’s what the Trail did. To find out what’s left of it, check out Jim’s post.
