The "A Little Bit Of This & That To Fill Your Spare Time" Story

It was an ordinary day.  Opened the folder on my desktop marked "This & That" and began searching for a few highlights that might be of interest to you today.  Most of the items aren't enough for a story or perhaps I can't think of a personal story to add to a photo that would hopefully interest you.  So, today I will post a "story" filled with a variety of highlights from the past.  It was another extraordinary day in the life of an ordinary guy.

Lancaster County, Pennsylvania is rated, depending upon whom you talk to or what website you are reading, as either the #1 or #2 covered bridge county in the United States.  Parke County, Indiana is the other location that attempts to lay claim to that same title.  Seems that Parke County has more covered bridges than we do in Lancaster County, but Lancaster has more that are still open to traffic.  And, we have, or had, the longest covered bridge ever built which was 5,690 feet long and spanned the Susquehanna River between Columbia and Wrightsville which is in York County.  That particular bridge opened in 1814 and the company that built it had a young lawyer named James Buchanan representing them.  Same one who became President of the United States.

Covered Bridge across the Susquehanna River

  A few years ago I helped a friend named Nate Netcher work on a book about the history of Manheim Township, Lancaster County.  One of the photos in that book was of a toll collection booth on the New Holland Pike near Pleasure Road.  That photo was taken about 100 years ago and today there are four lanes of traffic that traverse both directions at that intersection.  Can you imaging being the only motorized vehicle on a road, any road, stopping to pay Bertha Walters the toll at her tollbooth.

At one time there was a track just north of the city of Lancaster, off the Fruitville Pike at Glen Moore Circle.  It is said that the area is known as Glen Moore Circle due to this reason.  The houses were built around the track.

On November 24, 1929 there was an article in the Sunday News that told about the Dering Hotel in  Lancaster.  Mr. Dering came from England to the Colonies and started an Inn and Ferry service across the Conestoga just south of Bridgeport.  Captured British Officers were housed there during the Revolutionary War.

The Dering Hotel