The "Harrisburg Pike Memories" Story

It was an ordinary day.  Just pulling out of the driveway of Donnelley Printing Company onto the Harrisburg Pike in Lancaster, Pennsylvania after dropping off my grandson, Caden.  He spent the day with me and I had to take him to meet his dad after his dad finished his shift at the printing company.  

The tracks that run along Donnelley are the same tracks
that used to carry passengers to the Lancaster Fairgrounds.

As I sat in the car waiting for the light to change on Harrisburg Pike, I thought back to years ago when I used to visit the same site, only at that time it was a swimming pool.  One of my classmates at Brecht Elementary School, Biffie, lived in the house directly in front of the pool and her dad was the owner of the pool we all knew as Brookside.  It was back in 1914 that Silas Buckwalter opened the place which was eventually bought by Biffie's parents in 1945.  

Brookside Twin Pools.

I spent many a summer day swimming and enjoying the huge sliding board at Brookside.  Then in 1969 Mr. and Mrs. King purchased the pool.  Mr. King had worked at the pool as a teenager before he eventually purchased it.  When the King's took over they adopted a membership policy that would allow minorities to swim in the twin pools of Brookside.  

The grandstands at the Lancaster Agricultural Fair.

Then in 1978 the pools closed due to the expense to bring the pools up to code.  Sad day for many!  Eventually Donnelley purchased the property that now is the home to one of their three large printing plants in Lancaster.  But, before Donnelley and Brookside Swimming Pool occupied the large piece of property along the Harrisburg Pike, it was the Lancaster Agricultural Fairgrounds.  In

This aerial shot shows the track with grandstands directly
above it in the center of the photograph.  The train tracks
can be seen running across the bottom of the photograph
with Harrisburg Pike running across the bottom left of the photo.

1909 the annual Lancaster Agricultural Fair started a 23 year run on the Harrisburg Pike, luring customers to it's one-week summer meeting which included agricultural exhibits as well as horse racing.  It was to the rear of the property that fronted on the Harrisburg Pike, and even though Brookside opened in 1914 on the parcel along the pike, the fair continued until 1931.  

The racetrack and grandstands are shown here.

The Pennsyl- vania Railroad would shuttle thousands of passengers to the fairgrounds on special trains from its downtown station at North Queen and East Chestnut Streets.  The tracks ran directly along the side of the fairgrounds at the time.  

The entrance to the Fairgrounds as seen in 1910.

The ride would cost a dime for the round trip and another quarter got you into the fair.  Schools, shops and factories shut down for a day so students and workers could visit the fair.  Lancaster at the time was truly an agricultural society.  The harness racing on the half-mile dirt track was very popular.  Games of chance, food stands and a side show were also popular.  In 1911 airplane flights drew large crowds to the Lancaster Fair while another year "Professor" John Mack and his aeronauts rose in balloons and dropped in parachutes to the delight of the crowd.  Yet, another year saw the "The Performing Pachyderms" tour the fairgrounds.  

This photograph show the annual car show at the fair.
Taken in front of the Exhibition Hall.

There were annual car shows for those that took pride in their auto- mobiles.  Eventually the fair closed due to so many other nearby towns starting their own fairs as well as the Amish and Mennonites boycotting the fair due to the betting on horse races.  This little tract of land that now produces phone directories and commercial mailings has a rich history in Lancaster County.  It would have been neat to have lived in the era when the fairgrounds was the hub of Lancaster County agricultural importance, but time doesn't wait for anyone, including LDub!  It was another extraordinary day in the life of an ordinary guy.