My, my, how the downtown Lancaster retail scene has changed in 75 years.
At right is a list of stores participating in “Lancaster Sales Day” in 1934. The list was published in the New Era on Jan. 22 of that year. It’s a nice Who’s Who from the retail landscape of that day.
But only a few of the […]

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Thanks to The Associated Press and General Motors, we present to you today some nostalgic photos from GM history. The captions are above the photos.
The 1977 Pontiac Ventura SJ:

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
The 1969 Chevrolet Impala Custom Coupe:

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 The 1965 Buick Riviera (note the car phones):

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
The 1965 Pontiac GTO:

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
A Chevrolet Corvair is displayed at the 46th Paris Auto Show at the Grand […]

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The Associated Press distributed an interesting story today recapping the history of nationalization efforts in the United States.
It provides some context to the General Motors situation.
WASHINGTON (AP) — The U.S. assumption of a controlling interest in General Motors Corp. isn’t the first time the government has nationalized a company or an industry. It has taken […]

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The article and left and the ad at right ran in the New Era in early 1959. I stumbled across them at about the same time, and found the juxtaposition interesting. 
The Big 3 U.S. automakers sound reluctant to admit their plans to build some small cars for 1960. Meanwhile, Chrysler is importing French-made Simcas and Brubaker […]

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Last week, I wrote about electric cars that were sold at a downtown Lancaster dealership in 1909.
Today, I learned that old electric cars will be a major feature of this year’s Kutztown Folk Festival in Berks County, from June 27 to July 5.
A number of early electric vehicles will be on display at the festival. Many […]

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Last year, the Lititz Car Co. began selling Zap brand electric cars and trucks that can travel up to 40 mph and go 25 miles between battery charges. It was a big new thing for Lancaster County…..sort of.
Turns out that 100 years ago, you could buy an electric car on East King Street that went about 15 mph […]

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The article below, published in the New Era in March 1930, caught my eye because of its use of the phrase “New Capitalism.” That’s a term that seems to get tossed around quite a bit (you can read the results of a Google search here). So I thought it was interesting to see one businessman’s definition of the phrase 79 […]

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Here’s some evidence that, even in the so-called era of “cheap gas,” there were consumers thinking about fuel economy.
The Chevrolet ad below, which was published in the New Era on Feb. 5, 1959, touted the fuel efficiency of the “Hi-Thrift 6″ engine, which “Goes and goes and goes on a gallon!”
I thought it was interesting, however, […]

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In these tough economic times, it may come as a surprise that more than $1 billion sits unclaimed by its owners in Pennsylvania. That’s about 500 times more than the $2 million that was unclaimed 75 years ago (see article below).
The Pennsylvania Treasury Department maintains a database of thousands of abandoned bank accounts, forgotten stock certificates, uncashed checks, unclaimed life-insurance policies and […]

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Is Lancaster an affordable or expensive place to live? The debate, as the 1920 article below illustrates, has been going on for a long time. (Note the bracketed subhead under the first two headlines).
To those from the East Coast’s larger metropolitan areas, Lancaster remains a low-cost dream when it comes to housing and other key costs of […]

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