York Town Square

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On a rainy day before Thanksgiving in which snow is in the forecast, this sunny photograph might brightened the day for some readers. Don McClure captured this scene at sunrise several years ago. This wonderful area is remote enough that many York countians have never visited it. So where is Holtwood Dam on the long and broad Susquehanna River? The short answer: Travel the Norman Wood Bridge between York and Lancaster counties and look upriver.

Fred Beihl is known to YorkTownSquare.com readers because of his expertise about York safes made by Forry Laucks’ York Safe & Lock for decades before World War II. He’ll be talking about those safes plus others in a presentation to the Stewartstown-Shrewsbury Coin Club from 6:30 to 7:30 p.m. Tuesday at the Mason Dixon Public Library in Stewartstown. His presentation will include ‘the storage of valuables and the benefits of real safes vs. department store gun safes.’ He supplied this photo of a 2,000-pound Boston Safe, which must be the first photo on this blog of a safe that wasn’t a York-made safe. So Fred Beihl, also a coin dealer and auctioneer, knows safes of all stock – not just those sturdy vaults made by York Safe & Lock!

Les Stark, a marijuana activist in Pennsylvania, believes this photograph shows an old hemp mill. Mark Walters of The Evening Sun in Hanover is seeking more information on this mill, originally published in this YorkTownSquare spread about the Colonial Valley Mill in Menges Mills. The sellers of the Heidelberg Township mill, now under new ownership, believed this was part of the Colonial Valley operation

York County, Pa., has many scenes such as this, but you have to take a second to pull the vehicle off the road to enjoy them. Don McClure did just that, with a camera in his hand, and in so doing, he captured this wonderful country scene.

The town is no mystery. And the train is from Steam into History’s excursion service. That’s no mystery because it’s the only train running on those tracks nowadays. So here’s the mystery. How many times did Abraham Lincoln pass through Glen Rock, Pa.?