It was an ordinary day. Picking up my story from yesterday with another story related to the Traffic Signal Tower that I wrote about yesterday. A rather unusual story I found during my search told of a couple who made a visit to the city of Lancaster. In the Tuesday, April 24, 1934 edition of the Lancaster New Era was a story titled "County Couple, 60 & 53, Visit City First Time." Story told of Nathaniel Pannebecker, 53, and Mary Bickel, 60, both of Brecknock township in Lancaster County. They were making their very first trip to the city of Lancaster, Pennsylvania. Brecknock township is 33 miles from the city of Lancaster or perhaps a half-hour drive. Hard to believe that Nathaniel and Mary had never been to the city of Lancaster before in their lives.
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| Photograph from April 24, 1934 Lancaster New Era of Mary (left) and Nathaniel. |
As they stood in Lancaster's square, looking at the rushing cars speed by them, they felt a variety of emotions. There was the Griest skyscraper, the monument in the center of the square and of course, the police traffic control tower. Nathaniel Pannebecker, who was 53, lived in nearby Denver, Pennsylvania with his long-time housekeeper Mary Bickel who was 60 years old. Very seldom did they step off the farm property where they lived in nearby Denver, Pennsylvania. They kept track of things by reading their Lancaster newspaper. Other than that, they had very little need to leave their comfortable farm. Nathaniel did say that at one time he was at Womelsdorf, but that was the nearest he ever came to a city like Lancaster. Then he pointed to the traffic tower. Standing nearby was a fellow known as Sam Lazarowitz who was Lancaster's Penn Square newspaper boy. He was always willing to help a stranger or visitor to the city and probably sensed that Nathaniel and Mary fit into that category. When Nathaniel asked him, while pointing at the tower, "What's that thing?" Sam told him, "That's the policeman's tower." Then Sam said to the officer working the lights of the traffic tower, "Hey there, Rosey, put your head out." That's when Officer Ross Brubaker obediently put his head out the window on the top of the tower and waved. Nathaniel grinned and smiled as if he had just been greeted by the President of the United States. Mary, who was thrilled to be in center city Lancaster, was also excited, but speechless. The town was busy that day with newspaper reporters and photographers walking to and from their nearby office on West King Street, people waiting for a streetcar to arrive, shoppers as well as those waiting to cross the street when the light changed to green and when the bell rang. Someone asked Nathaniel why he had come to town for the day. He replied, "About tobacco business. We had a hard time finding the post office, but we found it. It's a nice place all right." Then someone, suspecting he might be a farmer, asked him, "How's the farm situation?" He told them he wasn't raising tobacco this year and that as long as it suited the government to pay him for raising nothing, it was all right with him. He thought farmers were entitled to $1.50 on milk and asked if the questioner didn't think so too. No answer followed, but the questioner did ask, "What do you think of Roosevelt?" Nathaniel said, " He's all right, if only people would listen a little better. Don't you think so?" The questioner didn't respond to that question either, but did ask, "What do you think of the Griest building?" while he pointed to Lancaster's skyscraper nearby. Nathaniel gave a blank stare as he looked at the building. "That building over there," the questioner said once more, as he pointed again to the Griest Building. "Oh, that's a sky scraper all right. There's nothing like it in Denver, Pennsylvania." The questioner asked, "Who the biggest people up your way?" "That's a tough one," but he finally said..."Agnus Cooper, the Justice of the Peace and Howard Hoffman, the produce dealer," Nathaniel replied. Then he told the questioner, "I inherited the farm from my father and had about 130 chickens, some cows and some horses." Then as the trolley car that read across the front, "Ephrata-New Holland" arrived, he told his questioner he had to leave. He did say, "I don't want to try driving into the city, but the street car ride is pretty nice." Nathaniel and Mary boarded the trolley and waved farewell to their new friends. On April 8, 1943, the Intelligencer Journal reported that the traffic control tower in Penn Square was "TO BE REMOVED FROM THE SQUARE." The Tower in Penn Square was to be razed as soon as city employees could complete tying in the traffic lights with those in operation elsewhere in the city. A small control box would still remain on site in case the police needed to work the lights manually. Monday, May 31 and the New Era tells Lancastrians that the "NEW SIGNAL SYSTEM IN SQUARE READY." Then in the Friday, June 11, 1943 Lancaster New Era, the headline read: "Tower Moved from Square After 14 Yrs." The end of Lancaster's Traffic Signal Tower had finally come to an end. It was another extraordinary day in the life of an ordinary guy.
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