The "Lancaster, Pennsylvania In Black & White With A Tinge Of Sepia" Story

It was an ordinary day.  Searching some of my favorite websites on early Lancaster, Pennsylvania for photographs I might have missed in the past.  I found a few that I though I would share to show you what the city I am part of looked like before my birth in the mid-1940s.  Before I begin with the photographs I thought, for those who may not be daily readers of my blog, I would give you just the bare history of what at one time was called Hickory Town.  Lancaster was named by native John Wright for the House of Lancaster in England.  It's symbol is the red rose and was part of the 1681 Penn's Woods Charter of William Penn.  The town was designed by James Hamilton in 1734 and incorporated as a borough in 1742 and incorporated as a city in 1818.  It was the capital of the United States for one day, September 27, 1777, when the Continental Congress fled Philadelphia during the American Revolutionary War since it had been captured by the British.  Lancaster was the capital of Pennsylvania from 1799 to 1812 when it was moved to today's capital city of Harrisburg.  Lancaster is one of the oldest, if not the oldest, inland cities in the United States with the mighty Susquehanna River as it's western border.  The photos I will post today are from the late 1800's until the mid-1900s.  Color photography overlaps the same era, but to me black and white tells the history of the city of Lancaster much better.  Enjoy.  It was another extraordinary day in the life of an ordinary guy.  PS - click on images to enlarge them.

The Fulton Opera House as seen in 1870.

F.W. Woolworth opened his first Department store in 1879 in Lancaster.

In 1899 Woolworth built Lancaster's first skyscraper complete with rooftop garden.

M. T. Garvin & Company Department Store came to Lancaster in the early 1900s.

This black and white shows the Court House on far left, Central Market in the center and the Hirsh Brother Penn Hall Clothing House in the late 1800s.

Lancaster's Southern Market in 1919.

Buch's Drug Store in 1940.

Kay Jewelry Store in 1910.

National Biscuit Company on Church Street in the early 1900s.

Train leaving the downtown station on Chestnut Street in 1911.

First Lancaster Post Office in downtown in 1917.

This is Queen Street in downtown Lancaster in 1927.  In the rear you can see Lancaster's newest skyscraper, the Griest Building.  It had just been built two years before the photo was taken.

A delivery of Sprenger Beer heads through the center of town.  This photograph is from the 1890s.

Looking East on West King Street.  The monument in the square can be seen in the distant center of this photograph.

One of Lancaster's most famous department stores, Watt & Shand, stands to the right.  It opened in 1879 with a series of additions made to it over the following 100 years.  

Lancaster Paint and Glass Company at 235 North Prince St.  Year not identified.

200 block of W. King Street with year not identified.

The St. Joseph School of Nursing in 1925.

Sam Lazarowitz selling the Lancaster Daily News on the square in 1942.  Notice his change belt which all newsboys wore.

This is a business card from the 1930s advertising Foster & Cochran Department Store. 

Train yard at West Lemon and Water Street.

This is one photograph that I had the chance to see recreated many times as a child.  It shows Santa Claus climbing the fire ladder to the top of the Watt & Shand Department Store on the square in downtown Lancaster.  My wife's high school band, for which she played clarinet, ushered Santa to the square for his ride to the top of Watt & Shand.  The bottom few floors of the Griest Building can be seen on the left.

Grand Movie Theatre on N. Queen Street taken in 1936.

One final photograph taken while standing in the center of Lancaster looking West.