In my first post on the cigar store figure Punch I shared his first known photo, dated from around 1870, and a current photo of him at York County Heritage Trust. My second post showed more of Punch’s stops around York’s Centre/Continental Square in the 1880s and 1890s. The photos
A couple of weeks ago I posted my recent York Sunday News column on the cigar store figure of Punch, which was positioned at various heights in various places on the northwest quadrant of York’s Centre/Continental Square for perhaps 60 years or more. The earliest known photo of Punch in
I have always been intrigued by the large and colorful Punch cigar store figure in the York County Heritage Trust collections. As I relate in my recent York Sunday News column, it is especially interesting that he “moved” around Centre/Continental Square in York over the years. In this and the
A few months ago I did a post on Henry Smeych, who claimed to have captured John Wilkes Booth’s horse on which Booth escaped after assassinating President Lincoln. At 87, Smeych, born in Chanceford Township in October 1837, talked at length about his adventurous life in a lengthy piece in
These York County people show up anywhere. A friend recently tipped me off on another one: You might remember the long-running panel show What’s My Line? The celebrity panelists were pretty sharp, guessing some pretty obscure occupations held by the guests. They didn’t guess what Bittersville (Lower Windsor Township) resident
One hundred and ten years ago, most folks, especially in rural areas didn’t have telephones. That wonderous invention was only 21 years old in 1897. As far as other media, Heinrich Hertz has only discovered radio waves ten years before and television was way in the future. The way to
We didn’t know how bad smoking was for our health 90 years ago, when cigar factories were springing up everywhere. In York County, we knew cigars were very good for our economy. For well over 150 years, processing tobacco into cigars kept many York Countians gainfully employed. If you’re a
One hundred years ago the Gazette reported a disastrous fire in Red Lion: When Mrs. Emanuel Barshinger of North Main Street woke up about 4 a.m., she could see a fire in Millard Smith’s cigar factory. It soon spread to surrounding buildings. The Smith factory and his warehouse were destroyed,