Following are summaries of local news stories from the pages of the Intelligencer Journal and New Era. This column appears on page B1 of the printed newspaper each Monday. The items are researched and compiled by staff member Tim Buckwalter. Full versions are available on microfilm at the Lancaster County Library, 125 N. Duke St.

25 years ago

HIT SONG: “We are the World,” the all-star benefit song recorded to aid famine victims in Africa, quickly became a big hit in Lancaster County during its first full week of exposure. “It was the most requested song last night when I was on the air,” WLAN-FM music director Jerry Michaels said at the time. The song was written by Lionel Richie (left) and Michael Jackson (right), who were joined on vocals by 43 other pop stars calling themselves “USA for Africa.” (March 15, 1985)

HISTORIC BUILDINGS: More than 600 buildings with “prime architectural and … historical significance” were discovered in a yearlong survey of southern Lancaster County buildings. The survey, by Historic Preservation Trust of Lancaster County, capped a three-year project that identified 2,200 buildings countywide. The project results were to be compiled into a book titled, “Our Present Past.” Among the historic Solanco buildings identified by researchers were Sickman’s Mill in Conestoga Township, the Kirk-Haines House in Little Britain Township and Christ Home for Children (right), on Route 30 in Paradise Township, which had formerly been the home of Judge J. Hay Brown. (March 18, 1985)

HEADMASTER: David A. Wachter, 48, of Keedysville, Md., was named headmaster and chief executive officer of Linden Hall School for Girls in Lititz. He replaced John H. Esperian, who had resigned two months earlier after a nine-year tenure at the private, Moravian-affiliated school. (March 21, 1985)

50 years ago

ALCOHOLICS: Pennsylvanians were consuming more alcoholic beverages than ever before, The Associated Press reported, and the number of alcoholics statewide was estimated at 300,000. An estimate of 7,000 alcoholics in Lancaster County was “fantastically conservative,” according to local experts. (March 16, 1960)

AMISH JAILED: Nine Amish fathers, firm in their belief that the new Twin Valley High School in Morgantown was “too worldly,” were sentenced to five days in Chester County Prison for refusing to send their children to school. (March 16, 1960)

PRISON LABOR: Prisoners at the Lancaster County jail had provided more than 10,000 man-hours of voluntary labor since the start of the year, a report of a March grand jury showed. Prisoners supplied 9,497 hours of labor to the county home, 50 hours to the courthouse and 529 hours to the Boys Club. Use of prison labor was one of many reported innovations introduced by Jack F. Tracy, who took over as warden early in January. (March 16, 1960) [Read more →]

The Robert Fulton Birthplace in southern Lancaster County is under strain due to a loss of state funding. A benefit concert Saturday evening at 7:30 will help raise money to help keep the historical site afloat. Fulton is credited with developing the first commercially successful steamboat.

To read Lancaster Newspapers correspondent Joan Decker’s short preview of the fundraising event, click here: [Read more →]

The Strasburg Heritage Society is hosting a visit from Lydia Hamilton Smith (portrayed by Darlene Colon) on Monday, March 15, at 7:30 p.m.

To read the heritage society’s full press release, click here: [Read more →]

Following are summaries of local news stories from the pages of the Intelligencer Journal and New Era. This column appears on page B1 of the printed newspaper each Monday. The items are researched and compiled by staff member Tim Buckwalter. Full versions are available on microfilm at the Lancaster County Library, 125 N. Duke St.

25 years ago

STUDENT COMPOSER: A 1982 graduate of Conestoga Valley High School was named a winner in the first Berklee Songwriters Competition at Berklee College of Music in Boston, Mass. Christine Swarr, a composer, arranger and vocalist, was a freshman at Berklee. Her winning composition, “Go On,” was chosen for top honors from among more than 100 taped entries submitted by the college’s most outstanding student composers. (March 12, 1985)

F&M APOLOGY: The president of Franklin & Marshall College apologized to students for a controversial general search of dormitory rooms by the campus security force. The search began without his knowledge and consent, said President James L. Powell. Two other administrators had initiated the search to find furniture that students had taken from other areas of campus to their rooms, officials said. (March 14, 1985)

JUDGE HONORED: President Judge Anthony R. Appel of the Lancaster County Court of Common Pleas was honored at a surprise retirement dinner attended by 200 people. Appel, a judge for 15 years, was approaching the mandatory retirement age of 70. He was approved to continue serving after retirement as a senior judge. Succeeding Appel as president judge was Judge Paul A. Mueller Jr. (March 14, 1985)

50 years ago

TRAFFIC JAMS: Scores of motorists were protesting congestion on Lititz Pike, where the opening of a Masters discount store and a Weis supermarket had spurred increased traffic. The section of Lititz Pike from the Stockyards to the bypass was one of the county’s busiest stretches of highway, traveled by an estimated 10,000 vehicles per day. (March 9, 1960)

RADIATION CHECKS: A young Franklin & Marshall College physicist was helping to set up and monitoring stations to check radiation levels before and after construction of the Peach Bottom nuclear reactor. He was acting as a consultant to a firm hired by Philadelphia Electric Corp., which was building the plant. (March 9, 1960)

ARSON SENTENCE: Three teenage girls who had pleaded guilty to burning and looting the new Elizabeth R. Martin school in Lancaster Township were sentenced to indeterminate terms at the State Industrial School for Women at Muncy. Two male suspects had been sentenced earlier. (March 11, 1960)

GOP CITY: In Lancaster city, 26,140 people were registered to vote in the spring primary. Of that total, 16,149 (or nearly 62 percent) were Republicans and 8,720 (or 33 percent) were Democrats. There were 856 registered independents, 408 with no party, 3 prohibition party, 2 socialists and 2 progressives. (March 11, 1960) [Read more →]

“Uncle Billy” Stiger drove a horse-drawn taxi around Lancaster for 42 years in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. When horse transportation finally became obsolete,  Stiger tried driving a motorized taxi for a couple of years, then gave up and retired.

Here ’s a 1934 article in which the aging chauffeur assures his former fares that he had no plans for a tell-all book. 

In this week’s Flashback Lancaster column, I included an item from 1910 about George Williams, described as a dwarf who was known as “Little Turtle Man.” Williams had disappeared mysteriously after taking part at the county fair here, and was found months later in York.

The local article included no photos, but a quick Google search turned up several Web sites that feature a George Williams who, it appears, might be the same person. The age descriptions don’t match up exactly, but enough other details, including the name and nickname, do.

Human Marvels

Picture History

I also scanned the full article from the New Era on March 2, 1910. To read it, click here: [Read more →]

Following are summaries of local news stories from the pages of the Intelligencer Journal and New Era. This column appears on page B1 of the printed newspaper each Monday. The items are researched and compiled by staff member Tim Buckwalter. Full versions are available on microfilm at the Lancaster County Library, 125 N. Duke St.

25 years ago

PROTEST: Four local ministers were among 30 United Methodist Church leaders from eastern Pennsylvania who were arrested at an anti-apartheid protest outside the South African Embassy in Washington, D.C. The local clergy, who said they were acting as individuals and not as representatives of their churches, were among the latest of 1,400 protesters who had been arrested outside the embassy during 15 weeks of demonstrations. The official charge was “demonstrating within 500 feet of an embassy.” The officers who arrested the local ministers reportedly were quite amiable, with some joking about stopping for ice cream en route to the police station. (March 2, 1985)

TMI SETTLEMENT: Seventeen Lancaster County children — from Columbia, Bainbridge and Mount Joy — were among 68 youths sharing a total of $3.3 million from a settlement of their claims that the 1979 accident at Three Mile Island caused such injuries as birth defects and emotional distress. The money was to be paid by insurance companies for the defendants, who included General Public Utilities Corp. and Metropolitan Edison Co., the GPU subsidiary that was operating the plant at the time of the accident. Most of the local children involved in the case were to receive $10,000. A GPU executive said the decision to settle was made by the insurance companies and was not an admission of guilt. (March 6, 1985)

SCHOOL ADDITION: Trustees of Lancaster Mennonite High School approved construction of a $600,000 addition designed to allow the school to accommodate 100 more students. The two-story addition was planned for the south end of the main classroom building and was to extend in an easterly direction, forming an “L” with the existing structure. (March 6, 1985)

50 years ago

FAKE BOMB: A fake bomb was found at Manheim Township High School after a telephone message from an anonymous male caller. The “bomb,” discovered in a boys’ lavatory as police combed the big new building, consisted of an alarm clock, a mass of wires and a brick inside a paper bag. (March 1, 1960)

DIALING SYSTEM: The Bell Telephone Co. announced plans to switch its phone-dialing system from a mix of two letters and five numbers to an all-number process. The company said it could take three to five years to complete the switchover. Under the new system, local residents no longer would have to remember if the proper exchange was, for example, EXpress, TWinoaks, LOwell, REpublic or EMpire. (March 1, 1960) [Read more →]

In this week’s Flashback column, I included a Feb. 23, 1960, Intell article in which the city’s police chief said he tried to issue as few gun permits as possible.

Given the present-day interest in gun rights and gun control, I decided to post the entire article here for anyone who’s interested in the details of the city’s position on the issue 50 years ago.

An alert reader noticed the reference in this week’s Flashback column to the recovery of items stolen from the “Conestoga Country Club” in 1910.

The current Conestoga Country Club, he noted, didn’t open until 1948, after being constructed by its members.

But apparently, a much earlier club went by the same name. What I didn’t include in the Flashback column was the fact that the 1910 article gave the location of the Conestoga Country Club as “near Witmer’s bridge.” That was the name of the bridge that crossed the Conestoga River at Bridgeport, on the east side of Lancaster, prior to the construction of the current bridge at that site in the early 1930s.

That site is several miles from the current Conestoga Country Club, at 1950 Stonemill Road, west of Lancaster. As far as I know, the older club and the newer club share nothing but a name, but if anyone knows differently, or can share more about the club “near Witmer’s bridge,” please post a comment.

In 2008, Jim Hersh of the Sunday News wrote a story about the current Conestoga Country Club’s 60th anniversary, and a book written to mark the milestone. To read that article, click here: [Read more →]

Following are summaries of local news stories from the pages of the Intelligencer Journal and New Era. This column appears on page B1 of the printed newspaper each Monday. The items are researched and compiled by staff member Tim Buckwalter. Full versions are available on microfilm at the Lancaster County Library, 125 N. Duke St.

25 years ago

INCINERATOR: Consultants developing Lancaster County’s master plan for solid-waste disposal selected four possible locations for trash-burning incinerators that would produce electricity or sell steam heat to industries. The four locations were an industrial area along Harrisburg Pike, a series of industrial parks along Route 30 and Centerville Road, the Creswell Landfill and a tract in the Leola area. (Feb. 22, 1985)

HEAT WAVE: Local temperatures soared to 77 degrees, making it the warmest Feb. 24 on record in Lancaster County. It was 2 degrees warmer here  than in Miami Beach, Fla. With the heat wave striking on a Sunday, an estimated 10,000 people flocked to Long’s Park to picnic, play tennis and feed the ducks. (Feb. 25, 1985)

50 years ago

ARMSTRONG: Armstrong Cork Co. reported the highest level of sales and net earnings in its history. Sales totaled $290.6 million for 1959 and net earnings were $19.2 million. (Feb. 23, 1960)

FULTON THEATER: “Professional legitimate theater” was scheduled to return to Fulton Opera House for the first time since 1931, the Intelligencer Journal reported. The national tour company from Arthur Miller’s “View From the Bridge,” starring Luther Adler, was scheduled for a three-night run at the 108-year-old landmark in downtown Lancaster. As far as could be determined, the newspaper reported, the show would be the first touring legitimate attraction to play Lancaster — for more than one night — since the operetta “Blossom Time” came into the Fulton in 1931. After that, the great stage went dark, and the historic theater became a motion picture house. (Feb. 25, 1960)

GUN CONTROL: Lancaster police Chief William B. Hershner said his department was turning down as many gun permit requests as it could. He said the department received countless requests every year from residents seeking gun permits, but most were refused. “Very few persons qualify for the permit issued by a police chief,” Hershner said. “The only ones who qualify are persons who carry valuables. We refuse all we can.” In 1959, he said, 55 gun permits were issued in the city. (Feb. 23, 1960) [Read more →]