Universal York

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transportation Archives

While doing some research on Phineas Davis and his York locomotive for an upcoming column, I realized I had never posted my column from some time ago on John Elgar and his Codorus steamboat. Elgar was a member of York’s Quaker community, as was Davis, and his iron steam boat

Some time ago I wrote a York Sunday News column on Dr. William Bigler’s 1890 trip to Florida to visit his son. In those days of railroads snaking all over the county, it might have been easier to travel from here to many other parts of the United States than

If you are a member of the York County History Center, you have probably already received the 2017 edition of Journal of York County Heritage. As part of the YCHC publications committee and one of the editors of the journal, I am again proud of this issue, the eighth in

We have the worldwide paper company Glatfelter based in York today, with one of its mills, very much expanded, operating in Spring Grove, where it all started. Even though now gone, there were many other local paper mills, both large and small, operating at various periods during the county’s history.

 I could go on about the dozens of picturesque covered bridges that used to dot the York County countryside, but this will be my last post on them for now. I realize that they were rendered obsolete by mid-twentieth century transportation needs and were not really sustainable. It is a

Newspapers of the past give a good look at the lives of our forebears. The advertisements can sometimes reveal more than news items. The ad below, from the York Gazette, for Richard Porter’s tavern, store, house with barn and other outbuildings, livestock, farm equipment, furniture and land, including an island