York Town Square

Part of the USAToday Network

Yes, women wore top hats for tea parties a century ago. This is one of hundreds photos and other artifacts found in Delta's Old Line Museum. (Jim McClure photo).

A day at the museum, Old Line Museum, Delta, Pa., style

Delta’s Old Line Museum  is open Sunday afternoons, May through September from 1:30 until 4 p.m.
Appointments also can be made for tours at this place that tells much about the Welsh quarrymen and their culture.
If you go, here are some of the pieces of this southeastern York County community’s past on exhibit.

More: Check out this story about a son of Delta: Lt. John Murphy.

Roofing slate was a primary product from the Delta-area quarries. This punch was used to prepare the shingles to be affixed to roofs. (Jim McClure photo).
Two minerals from Delta-area quarries – slate, left, used for roofing and sidewalks and other building uses and and green marble, right, used for countertops, among other things. (Jim McClure photo).
People rightly associate the slate industry with Delta – an industry that went out of business about a century ago. But the cigarmaking was big there, too, and the Ma & Pa. Railroad provided the means to get products to market. (Jim McClure photo).
A one-horse open sleigh? Yes. (Jim McClure photo)

 

The Old Line Museum is housed in the old bank building. So it’s good to know banks a century ago shopped locally. (Jim McClure photo).
The prized artifact in the museum is the Humphrey Pritchard tall case clock, made mostly from slate. It’s still operable, if tuned. (Jim McClure photo.)
W.C.T.U. – the Women’s Christian Temperance Union – operated in towns, large and small, in its fight against alcohol abuse.
The Old Line Museum, operating in a Dempwolf-designed bank building on Delta’s Main Street. (Jim McClure photo).