The "The Story of Grandview Heights: The Beginning" Story

It was an ordinary day.  Pulled the book titled From The Beginning - A History of Manheim Township off my book shelf and began looking through it to find the origins of a place called Grandview Heights.  The book was written by a good friend, C. Nat Netscher and the layout and design was done by Larry W. Woods.  Wow, that's me!  Yep, back in 2003 Nat called and asked if I was interested in working with him on the book that tells the story of the locale where we live.  Soon we were busy with meeting after meeting working on the book.  My story today begins with the emergence of Lancaster County in 1729.  It was at that time that a new county was carved out of Chester County and given the name of Lancaster after Lancashire, a county in England.  The new county was divided into seventeen townships, three of which eventually became part of Dauphin and Lebanon counties.  Of the fourteen that remained, Manheim Township, named after a city in Germany, was to the north of Lancaster and was reconfigured through annexation several times during the 1940's and 1950's by it's larger neighbor, Lancaster City.  Throughout the 1700's the township grew, mostly with farmers and mechanics from Germany.  Religion was a big part of their life and in 1767 a "Great Meeting" was held in the barn of Isaac Long near Landis Valley.  At this time a new congregation, the first born on American soil and called the United Brethren in Christ, was begun.  Years later it was decided to establish twelve urban villages throughout the township with each village holding services for it's residents.  

An aerial photograph showing the layout of Grandview Heights.  The building on the bottom left is the  Pleasure Road School which is now apartments. Click on photos to enlarge.  

One of the villages was called Grandview Heights.  In 1925 Samuel R. Slaymaker cleared the way for the village when he purchased four hundred acres of farmland from the McGrann and Rohrer families.  

Some of the earliest equipment was pulled with horses.

Wasn't long before surveyors, engineers and landscape architects had completed their designs and began construction of the village.  In April of 1927, steam shovels began the chore of building the streets, water mains and sewer lines.  

Asphalt laying equipment is in use in this photo.

The first houses were completed in late 1928.  The house that Carol and I purchased after getting married was one of the first built.  While working on renovations in the bathroom of 925 Janet Ave., I found the date 1929 stamped on the back of the medicine cabinet.  

On the bottom of the photo at about 7:00 you can see the new Schaeffer School Building.  The road above it is McGrann Boulevard.  Follow that one block, turn left and you will see a few houses in the center of the block.  Our house is the first one in line. 

On an aerial photo of the area dated the same year, you can see two sets of semi-detached homes in the 900 block of Janet Ave.  One of those home was the one we had purchased.  

Close to the center of the photo is a house with an awning on the front porch.  Our house is directly to the left of that house with the chimney free-standing along the side of the roof.

The Grandview Heights Corporation had an office building at the intersection of McGrann Boulevard and Janet Avenue.  It was removed when housing was place on the location.  The CD that I talked about in yesterday's story has over 100 images showing the construction of the homes in Grandview Heights.  

This was the playground and park for Grandview Heights.  It was about a half-block from my house at the intersection of Janet Avenue and Cameron Avenue.

 What a great way to see the development and housing structures of Grandview Heights.  The road that borders to the north in the Heights, Pleasure Road, had a school that was built in 1859, long before Grandview Heights was started.  The school, known as the Pleasure Road School was to educate the children of the nearby  village of Rossmere.  The school was razed in 1906 and replaced with a new and larger school.  That school building was closed in 1937, but still remains on Pleasure Road and is now known as the Schoolhouse apartments.  

The new Nathan C. Schaeffer School on Pleasure Road.  Our children walked about a block and a half to reach school each day.  They all spent hours in the summer playing in the playground behind the school.  That was back in the 1970's and you didn't have to worry about your children playing away from home.

On March 8, 1937 the students of the old Pleasure Road School marched down the street and into a new and modern school named the Nathan C. Schaeffer Elementary School.  It was named in honor of Mr. Schaeffer who was a former state superintendent of schools.  All three of my children walked the block from our house to Schaeffer school throughout their elementary years in school.  

This was the row of homes across from the school on Pleasure Road.  They were some of the first homes built in Grandview Heights.

My good friend, Mike, who has worked with me on in-house school printing for the Manheim Township School District for over 40 years now, was a teacher in the school and had my children in class.  Grandview Heights remains one of the premier places to live in Lancaster County.  It's tree-lined streets and well-kept homes reminds one of towns depicted in TV shows such as Leave It To Beaver.  Carol and I lived in the Heights for 29 years and only after becoming empty-nesters did we venture to another part of Manheim Township.  

The trolley came from Lancaster City and through Grandview Heights on Fountain Avenue which is the western most street in the Heights.

Life in the Heights is still welcoming for those who call it home.  The last couple of years a few new homes have been added to the east of the Heights on a farm that was sold for development.  It is still called Grandview Heights in that area, but will take years to be a real part of the Grandview Heights community.  My parents worked hard to earn their home in the Heights and Carol and I raised our family in the Heights.  Wouldn't have done anything different if we'd have had a chance to do it all over again.  It was another extraordinary day in the life of an ordinary guy.   PS - Tomorrow's final story will show you more of the photos depicted on the CD Mike gave to me with current photos so you can see the changes, if any, from back in the late 1920's and 1930's till the 2000's.