The "A Visit To Lancaster In The Sixties: Part I - the 1960s" Story

Foreword:  Sitting in the lobby of the Lancaster Historical Society building along President Avenue in Lancaster, Pennsylvania talking with a fellow whom I hadn't seen since my college years at Millersville State Teacher's College.  I was about to leave the museum when I looked across the lobby and there was Leroy Hopkins; or should I say Dr. Leroy Hopkins.  We met in the mid-1960s when we both were undergraduates at Millersville.  We were both commuters and ate lunch together at the "Rat Race" which was an upstairs restaurant in the middle of the campus.  Played a few games of pool and darts with him during our couple of years meeting for lunch.  Dr. Hopkins is now retired from Millersville University where he was the chair of the Language department.  We had an interesting conversation and in about 20 minutes his ride arrived and we wished each other a good-bye.  My meeting was an added surprise to my visit to see the current exhibition at LancasterHistory which is titled "Lancaster in the Sixties."  It features displays from the 1660s, 1760s, 1860s and 1960s.  I spent the best part of an afternoon or so walking through the exhibition, taking photographs of some of my favorite memories, hoping to share them with you today.  The following story will take you back in history over 450 years to a time, or should I say times, when life was quite a bit different than what it is today.  Hope I have selected a few items that will be of interest to you.

It was an ordinary day.  Standing in front of the display that features stories of the city of Lancaster, Pennsylvania in the 1960s.  The 1960’s in Lancaster featured a revolution in woman’s rights, rock and roll music, equal rights for Black Americans, the Viet Nam War and urban renewal.  Woman’s roles in society were rapidly changing in the 1960s with the National Organization for Women being established in 1966 to support and reinforce women’s rights.  Also championed were women’s health issues and reproductive rights.  With that came a greater access to higher education for all women.  Millersville State Teacher’s College, where I had gone to school in the early 1960s had already become coeducational in the previous century, but Ivy League colleges as well as our local Franklin & Marshall College went coed.  In 1968 the president of F&M, Keith Spaulding, created a task force to explore coeducation.  The following year, when nearly half the students enrolled in colleges and universities across the nation were women, F&M admitted its first female students. In the summer of 1963 Black Americans marched for equal rights.  In Lancaster’s Rocky Springs Amusement Park, were Black residents were not allowed to swim in the pool, a protest with more than 60 people, black and white, marched outside the park carrying signs and American flags. On December 1, 1969 the Selective Service System of the United States conducted two lotteries to determine the order of call to military service.  As I looked over the display of Viet Nam memoribilitia, I saw a familiar face in Tom Heckles who I knew from St. James Episcopal Church.  He was in the service during the Viet Nam War and photos of him were part of the diaplay in the museum.  The following are just a few photos showing life in the 1960s in Lancaster County, PA.

PS - Tomorrow will feature stories from the 1660s, 1760s and the 1860s.

"We've Gone Co-Ed" poster from 1969.  Students in
this poster portray the various reactions to
Franklin & Marshall College going co-ed.
Click on images to enlarge them.  

This is an advertisement that appeared in Time Magazine, May 23, 1969
advertising the Franklin & Marshall College is now open to women.

Co-ed class members look at the poster on a tree on the campus of Franklin & Marshall.

March on Washington, August 28, 1963.  As women found their public voices,
they joined protest movements across the nation from free speech to ant-war to
Civil Rights.  Pictured here is Betty Tompkins who championed many causes
during her life.  This photograph shows Betty at the Martin Luther King Jr.s
March on Washington.  Mrs. Tompkins, as I knew her, was a member of St. James
Episcopal Church and knew my parents very well.  I was good friends with
her son who sang in the church choir with me.  

Black and whites both marched in front of Rocky Springs Amusement Park
in 1963 to protest that Blacks were not allowed to swim in their public pool.

This Emmy Award was presented to The Radio Corporation
of America (RCA) for developing the innovative "image orthicon
tube" to improve broadcast of images.  This technology was used widely
in TV broadcasts throughout the 20th century.  It was also used by NASA
to capture images of space during the "Space Race" of the 1960s.
RCA was located in Lancaster, PA, about six blocks from my home
in nearby Grand View Heights.

These Jungle Boots and Combat Helmet belonged to Dr. C. Darrell Lane who joined the U.S. Army
in 1963, and volunteered to go to Vietnam in June of 1968.  He was a Major in the Army Medical
Corps.  His young family stayed behind in nearby Bowmansville, PA while he spent a year serving
in Vietnam where he was stationed in Saigon.

This letter was written by Tom Heckles who served with the SeaBees Mobile
Construction Battalion 1 of the United States Navy from 1966-1967 in
Da Nang, Vietnam.  He volunteered for the service.  Tom is a good friend who
also is a member of St. James Episcopal Church.  The photograph below
shows Tom on the right of the photo.

This was the front page of the local newspaper the day after
the draft lottery was held for the first time.

The Beatles and Rolling Stones arrived on American shores in 1964, launching
what became known as the British Invasion.  Stan's Record Bar in downtown Lancaster
was a favorite hangout for me during my college years as I bought many 45s for my
record player.  In 1961 Lancaster TV station WGAL premiered "Dance Party" which
went along with Philadelphia's "Bandstand."  The jitterbug was the big dance craze of the era.
In Lancaster, Roy and Gene Clair had just opened their new business using a PA system they purchased
from their father.  Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons arrived at Franklin & Marshall College
while on tour in 1966 and used The Clair Brothers for their sound.  They became one of
the biggest sound companies in the world.  They now have a huge complex in nearby
Lititz, PA known as "Rock Lititz".  Roy was a classmate of mine at Millerwsville State
Teachers College in the mid-1960s and purchased sound systems for the
stereo units we each had built in the wood shop at the college.

The two above photos show urban renewal in Lancaster, PA in the 1960s.
The mayor's office decided to tear down one of Lancaster's most treasured hotels
and replace it with what was known as the "concrete jungle".  Today, most of the new
buildings in the 100 block of North Queen Street are still an eyesore for the community.