York’s Carlisle Avenue Market Didn’t Last Long
Carlisle Avenue Market building today
It’s time to get back to my “York Market House Series.” So far I have covered markets which still exist: Downtown Central Market, Farmers or Penn Street Market and New Eastern Market. I also did a post on the original Eastern Market, whose building still stands.
I will also be doing an extensive post soon on City Market, whose glorious building was lost to “progress” in the 1960s.
The most elusive York market was the Carlisle Avenue Market, which operated from 1902 until around 1913.
According to Prowell’s History of York County, the Carlisle Avenue Market & Storage Company was organized in 1902, erecting “a large and commodious brick market house on Carlisle Avenue, near the railroad.” Markets were held Wednesday and Saturday afternoons. In 1907 their capital stock was worth $25,000.
The market venture didn’t last long. According to city directories, the Dauntless Shirt Factory was at that site around 1913. The Carlisle Avenue Market & Storage Company does appear in that year’s directory, but so does the Dauntless Shirt Factory, both at 110 Carlisle Avenue. The market may have just gone out of business and the change not made in the directory.
Sewing factories subsequently dominated the site for decades. A sampling of directories shows Dauntless Shirt there into the 1920s. The 1927-28 directory listed White Rose Textile Co. at 110 Carlisle Avenue. The same directory shows Wm. Bernstein, shirt manufacturer, at 26-31 N. George St, but by 1933-34 Bernstein Shirt Mills was at the Carlisle Avenue site. Bernstein stayed there through the 1970s, having changed sometime to a dress manufacturer. Colebrook Terry made sleepwear in the market house/factory during the 1980s and 1990s.
Perhaps it was location that led to the early demise of the Carlisle Avenue Market. It was not far from the Penn Street Farmers Market and not close to the center of town. Location might have also helped saved the building–the site might have fallen victim to “progress” if it was in a busier location. Today the building has been renovated and is home to the DreamWrights Youth and Family Theater, an excellent use for a worthy old building.
