I recently read a story written by Lancaster Newspaper columnist Jack Brubaker, aka "The Scribbler" who told a tale of...changing twilights and tall trees that acted as grim sentinels who guarded the Hotel that sat on the East side of the mile-wide river dotted with green islands and boulders worn smooth from the washing of the river water. The story was published on Tuesday, August 30, 1988 in Lancaster's New Era newspaper. The Riverview Hotel was built in 1902-03 by Mr. Frederick Schoff who sold it to Mr. Paul Heine in 1904. Those two gentlemen owned close to five miles of prime river frontage along the Susquehanna on the Lancaster County side, or east side, of the river. The hotel entertained both locals as well as prominent visitors from as far away as Chicago and New York. Originally the hotel had 75 bedrooms, a dining room, a few tennis courts, croquet courts and swings with canopies. It also had a pretty lively ballroom where visitors and locals danced the jitterbug. One of the main attractions at the Riverview Hotel was Pappy Stark and His Blue Danube Serenaders (No need to Google the group...I already did and there are no entries about them). One thing you can be sure of was the amount of whiskey that flowed along the river, most surely going through the hotel! According to "The Scribbler", the proprietor of the hotel at the time, a Mr. Charles Weingartner, advertised that the place had no mosquitoes or malaria and could be reached conviently by way of the trolley from Lancaster or Millersville.
Boating on the Susquehanna River |
One of the dams on the mighty Susquehanna River. |
I used to live in Pequea when i was a kid . My Dad sometimes would take me with him and we would go there for a beer.( not me but my dad. )This was around 1960-1965 as we then moved to Virginia. I remember Paul bartending and by that time there was not much going on as far as business.We lived at 74 Ridge Dr, Which was up behind where the hotel was. My father Dale Young Retired and moved back to our old house and lived there until around 2001.Thank you for this article, It brought back alot of memories. Colin Young
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