York Town Square

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Atop Chickies Rock: The lower Susquehanna River’s No. 1 lookout post

Linked in/Neat stuff, below: Digging Camp Security/Yorktowne Hotel’s lobby, 1956

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Ah, the popular view of the Susquehanna River – and York County across the waterway – from Chickies Rock. This is looking upstream. Chickies Rock is named after the American Indian word Chiquesalunga meaning “place of the crayfish.” The park surrounding it is well watered  – a mecca for crayfish – with the Susquehanna River and Chiques and Donegal creeks running through its 400-plus acres. This York, Pa., Daily Record photo comes from story: Spend a day down by the river in Wrightsville, Marietta and Columbia.  This FlipSidePa.com story takes a different view on the river towns: ‘Nestled along the Susquehanna River, the towns of Marietta, Wrightsville and Columbia represent themselves as “historic” more than they use the word “fun.” But they could and should.’ Also of interest:  When you enjoy this view from Chickies Rock, how how high above the Susquehanna are you?

Other neat, unrelated stuff from all over … .

Roy Flinchbaugh is a longtime reader of my history stuff and an astute observer of the York scene. I always read his emails with a sense of discovery.

Here’s a recent exchange that might answer a question that you have:

“With your greatly informative column in the current Sunday News
a picture of the square in 1887 was included. I’m having trouble placing the direction from the square that the picture was taken.

“If the church spire on the right-hand side is that of 1st Presbyterian, then the picture must have been printed backwards in the source from which you took it. Likewise, if the spire is that of Christ Lutheran. I can’t think of any direction from the square in which a church spire would appear on the right, & a church is generally one thing that is spared from the wrecking ball.”

Amid all this hustle and bustle of the market place in the autumn of 1927 and the general discomboomeration that marked the era, York found time to put ona a eally creditable Sesquicentennial celebration of the meeting in York of the Continental Congress inthe winter of 1777-79. Pagentry and parades highlighted the program in which thousands took part on the fairgrounds adn on streets decoratedin a manner reminiscent of the big Centennial celebration of 1899.  Photo courtesy York 225th Anniversary Program This is the photo and column that Roy was asking about.

My response: “This is one I can answer. That’s the spire of the old York County Courthouse (No. 2) on East Market St., demolished to make way for the newer YC Courthouse (No. 3), now the administrative center. No. 2 was built circa 1940 to replace the original courthouse (No. 1) that was in Continental Square. That was where Continental Congress met. Courthouse No. 4, of course, is now known as the YC Judicial Center on North George St. Make sense now?”

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Sprawling properties: The York County Heritage Trust  properties dot York city. This might surprise you.

 

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Updating: The dig at Camp Security

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Cliff Satterthwaite’s notations at the bottom of this drawing tell the place and date. For more than 100 drawings from Cliff, check out Satterthwaite.

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History Mystery: This comes from a recent post, assessable through the goo.gl link.

History Mystery: This might be easy for some but not so for those who don’t pass through this #YorkPa neighborhood. What…

Posted by York Daily Record/Sunday News on Thursday, May 21, 2015