The "The Garden Spot of America" Story

Foreword: I decided to take a few photos before I wrote my story today, so I grabbed my trusty Sony and headed east from my home near the city of Lancaster.  Within an hour of leaving home I was back, sitting in front of my computer downloading the photos into iPhoto for this story. That should give you an idea of how close the city is to the farms in the Garden Spot of America. Click on any of them to enlarge them. 

It was an ordinary day.  Decided to "Google" Garden Spot of America.  All my life I have lived in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania and have just figured that everyone in the entire world knew that Lancaster County was known as the Garden Spot of America for good reason.  The reason:  The soil throughout Lancaster County is perhaps the most fertile in all the world.  Just ask the many farmers that call Lancaster County home.  Heavens, we even have a high school in Lancaster County called Garden Spot High School and for years I typeset and printed flyers for a business known as Garden Spot Promotions.  

If you stand on the square in downtown Lancaster City you are probably only about 10 minutes away from a farm no matter which way you drive.  And the farms are magnificent.  Really neat white-washed barns with circular silos that stand next to homes, many of which remind you of southern plantation homes.  

Many of the farms are owned and operated by Amish families.  How can you tell ..... there are no telephone lines or electric lines leading from the road to the farm and you will more than likely see lines of drying clothes strung from the house to the barn by means of a pulley system.  

Well, I Googled and found exactly what I thought I would find.  Many links to stories about Lancaster County as being the Garden Spot of America.  One link took me to a book that had been published in 2002 titled Garden Spot: Lancaster County, the old order Amish, and the selling of rural America.  

The book was written by author David J. Walbert.  A small paragraph tells readers that .... Within the borders of Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, lies some of the richest farmland in the Western Hemisphere. Barely fifty miles from Philadelphia, the county has been a model of agricultural prosperity and stability for nearly three hundred years, and its farmers—particularly its Pennsylvania German farmers—have since the time of the American Revolution been widely considered some of the most capable in the nation. That agriculture has remained the focus of Lancaster’s economy into the late twentieth century is a testament not only to the land and those who farm it, but also to the tenacity of the idea of Lancaster, held by residents and outlanders alike, as the "Garden Spot of America."  

It seems that many of the earliest settlers in Lancaster County were German immigrants and a Lutheran pastor in 1702 quickly sent his observations of Lancaster County back to his native Germany leading to an influx of farmers into Lancaster County.  I have also found other references to Lancaster County as being called the "Garden of America" as well as a "Green Garden", but to me they all translate to the Garden Spot of America.  If you have ever traveled to, or lived in, Lancaster County, I'm positive you would agree with me.  It was another extraordinary day in the life of an ordinary guy.