Lottie Hull submitted her story of growing up on a farm in Windsor Township during the 1950s and early 1960s. The weekly highlight was going along with her mother on shopping trips to the Country Folk Shop, located in a Locust Grove area barn; then continued along East Prospect Road to Seitz’s Food Market in Longstown.
William S. Shipley is known for his leadership in the “York Plan” and for being the national spokesman for that defense production plan during World War II; however he also provided astute leadership during York Ice Machinery Corporation’s transition from Ice Making to Air Conditioning during the 1930s. William S. Shipley succeeded his older brother Thomas Shipley as president of Yorkco in 1930.
Robert Fraser submitted photos of a 1937 Batch Ice Cream Freezer, which was manufactured by YORK Ice Machinery Corporation, at their plant in Canton, Ohio. The freezer is still used at Erikson’s Ice Cream Stand in Maynard, Massachusetts; because it makes better ice cream, compared to that made in modern freezers. Robert’s submission was the tipping point in writing about the Canton Plant; which became YORK’s third major manufacturing facility in 1927.
Cathy Ross shared stories of riding horses at Avalong Farms Morgan Stable and then working at their Barn Mall; in the Blue Sky Jean Shop and at the Boring Furniture Outlet. Prior to the opening of the Galleria, the Avalong Farms Barn Mall housed 25 shops in their former horse barn. Even so, that barn site played a part in the backstory of the Galleria Mall.
The origins of Springettsbury Township Park stretches back centuries. In 1793, Jacob Strickler established a 44-acre farm straddling present Mount Zion Road; with the farm fields worked by Strickler descendants, continuously for over 100-years. Dr. Louis V. Williams conveyed those same 44-acres to Springettsbury Township in 1966, at the conclusion of a 10-year installment payment plan. Three years later, the farm fields were transformed into the initial nucleus of Springettsbury Township Park.
Joe Spagnolo shared some fascinating early history about the 1960s Wagner’s Diner, located along the Lincoln Highway, east of Hellam. A 1963 publication contains a photo of the downstairs bar, with the caption: “Wagner’s Saloon, run by John Wagner in Hellam, Pa., is the home of the country’s first Noggin Club.” These clubs quickly spread across North America. They owed their name and popularity to characteristics of Noggin beer mugs, produced with the proprietary, aluminum-based alloy metal, Armetale, developed in 1963 by Ralph P. (Bud) Wilton, Jr.
A log house in Goldsboro was carefully dismantled about 25-years ago and stored in a barn. The owners of the dismantled log house for the past 13-years, Ted Pesano and his wife, were planning to reassemble the house as their residence, however circumstances have changed. The marked pieces and drawings, for reassembly, are now for sale. Their hope is that the log house can stay in York County.
During 1926, five hospitals were in York, PA; from the most beds to the least: York Hospital, 125 beds; West Side Sanitarium, 42 beds; York County Almshouse Hospital, 28 beds; Polyclinic Hospital, 10 beds; and Church View Sanatorium, 6 beds. The building, in Doctors Row at 409 West Market Street, was the site of Church View Sanitarium; containing an operating room primarily utilized by Dr. Samuel E. Ensminger from June of 1916 into the 1920s. Learn how that Sanatorium had an impact on the establishment of the Polyclinic Hospital in York.
Lydia Eloise Williams furthered her education, got married to Reginald Hall, and become internationally known as a pioneer in nursing theory with her Care-Cure-Core method; following twenty-two formative years in York County, Pennsylvania, where her upbringing and nursing degree in 1927 undoubtedly providing the solid foundation for that pioneering nursing theory work, while in New York.
The expansion of the Springettsbury Township municipal complex closer to the southeast corner of Mount Zion Road and Pleasant Valley Road is imminent. A fire in the existing Police Station a year ago was the final straw in a string of significant issues within what is the original municipal building for Springettsbury Township. A year-long planning effort during 2020 will likely result in a groundbreaking during the first half of 2021.