Mike Spyker recognized a buckwheat field growing along Blackbridge Road between the York Mill of Ardent Mills and the York County Solid Waste Incinerator. Like sorghum planted in this field last year, buckwheat is an unusual crop in the Eastern United States. Nevertheless, buckwheat flour and buckwheat honey were staples of my grandparents.
Who remembers the Liberty Limited Dinner Train, which operated in southern York County from 1996 until 2001 on the old Northern Central Railway tracks; better yet, who traveled on the original Liberty Limited, the deluxe express train of the Pennsylvania Railroad, which included the same section of rails, in its run between Washington D.C. and Chicago from 1925 until 1957.
The Violet Hill Alums Group shared geographic recollections of Violet Hill Elementary School that describe the Violet Hill neighborhood of Spring Garden Township as it was from the late 1930’s and onward. Thanks to Thomas Stambaugh and Kathryn Bentz Schwartz for allowing me to illustrate the group’s memories.
Nick Lentz noted that when his grandparents dated they often went to the Imperial Theatre in Wrightsville. Those dates always included shared dreams of buying a car as they walked by an enticing car lot at the theatre entrance. That car lot turned out to be shrewdly located by the common owner of the Theatre and the Lincoln Highway Garage; which was an agency for Ford, Dodge and Buick automobiles.
Bill Eaton has an interest in the present location and the wording on a Memorial Plaque originally affixed to the scoreboard installed by York-Hoover employees at Memorial Stadium in York. Within collections of the York County History Center, a 1948 article, with photos, was discovered in “The York-Hoover Herald,” a monthly publication by and for the employees of York-Hoover Corporation, which answered many of his questions.
Aden Buser was the supplier of cigar boxes and cases to fourteen cigar makers located in and around Tilden, i.e. Longstown; an unincorporated village which has always straddled three York County townships and presently is the crossroads of four public school districts. Research into one of Aden’s advertising items revealed neat details about Tilden.
The precise location of an early Knab /Knaub /Hake family cemetery was sought due to construction work commencing in the area around a former stone quarry near Emigsville. The cemetery is one of three sites, in that vicinity, listed on Manchester Township Historical Society’s Historic Site Register.
Mill Races transported Valley Creek water to power everything from Grist to Saw Mills within Glen Rock. From 1837 until 1933, a covered Head Race was located under the present outdoor seating area of the pictured Glen Rock Mill Inn, delivering water to power the waterwheels within the mill.
The frantic activity at the top of South Queen Street hill in 1952 centered on a race to get WSBA-TV on the air as the nation’s first commercially equipped UHF station (i.e. Channels 14 to 83). At the time, minimal TV reception was available in the York area.
Connecting the dots on the naming of Powder Mill Road may go back to inspection visits to the U. S. Army General Hospital in Penn Park during the Civil War. A lasting positive impression of the hospital and the York Community could have influenced Dr. Thomas C. Brainerd to select York as the site for his powder mill venture in 1874; which led to the naming of Powder Mill Road.