The "Lancaster City's Historic Marketplaces" Story

A curb market on East King Street in downtown Lancaster, PA.

It was an ordinary day.  Just returned from taking photographs of Lancaster's early farmer's markets.  Interesting to know that the "town planner" of Lancaster, Pennsylvania was James Hamilton who laid out the city and sold lots to new residents.  He founded the city as a "market town" and one of his first acts was to designate a market space in the very center of the new town.  

Another city curb market

On May 15, 1730, Hamilton and his wife deeded three lots for three specific uses; a courthouse, a jail and a market- house.  Under his leadership the city of Lancaster became the largest inland town in America.  Lancaster County is known far and wide for its agricultural prominence with just about every sort of produce and livestock; known at the time as being available at one of its farmers markets.  Lancaster was at that time, and is still, known as the most productive non-irrigated county in America.  And, the farmer's markets, which date back to 1730 Lancaster, were a critical ingredient to our nation's food system.  

And yet another curb market near Lancaster's Court House.

In the center of the city was a 120 square foot lot designated as a public market which eventually gave birth to what we who live in Lancaster call Lancaster Central Market.  Over time the size of the market and the number of vendors has changed, but at one time there were about 400 vendors in Lancaster's Central Market.  

Here can be seen Lancaster's Town Hall with
Central Market tucked in behind it on the right.

From 1818 until after WWI several "curb markets" sprung up around the town.  These markets saw local farmers and merchants setting up their wagons on the curb to sell their goods.  Then in 1889 the area designated as Central Market saw a market house built in the Romanesque Revival architecture.  It has become one of Lancaster's treasures and was designated as one of the "Great Public Places" in America in 1995.  Lancaster Central Market is the oldest continuously operating farmer's market in America.  A number of other areas of the city also had market houses which developed on the spots designated by James Hamilton in the early 1700s.  

Interior of Central Market years ago.

Today there are over 8,000 markets operating throughout the United States which shows that farmer's markets are still a vital source of fresh, locally produced foods with strong ties to our nation's history.  My trip today to take photographs yielded only one active remaining markethouse, since all have closed except for Central Market.  Follow along and I will tell you about the markethouses that at one time dotted the different areas of Lancaster City.  It was another extraordinary day in the life of an ordinary guy. 

Southern Market was built in 1888 in the Queen Anne Style which was designed by C. Emlen Urban.  The building displays ornamental terra cotta and decorative brickwork and is anchored by two pyramidal towers.  It is located at 100 South Queen Street, about a block from Central Market.  Both my wife and I remember making visits with our mothers to buy produce and meats on Saturday mornings while growing up in Lancaster.  This markethouse closed in 1986 and now houses the City Council Chambers.

This closer view show the architecture of the building.

This is Eastern Market which was located at 308 East King Street which is three blocks from Central Market.  It was built in 1883 to serve residents in the city's eastern end and illustrates Second Empire Style architecture.  It features the bell-curved mansard roof with a three-story corner tower.  It closed as a markethouse in 1927 when exterior changes were made to the building.  The building now houses offices.

The Eastern Market marquee still remains.

Fulton Market stands at 607 North Plum Street and was built in 1907 using Colonial Revival Style architecture.  It too was designed by C. Emlen Urban nineteen years after he designed Southern Market.  It was centrally located in this photograph with flanking residential wings.  Today the building still has residential as well as retail space.

Here you can see the name on top of the central section of the building.

Western Market was located at 528 West Orange Street.  It was built in 1882 as a three-story markethouse in the Romanesque Revival Style and featured seven bays defined by blind arches and corbelled brickwork.  It eventually closed as a market and became a skating rink.  It was later reduced to one story by a 1942 fire.  Carol and I bought our first new car, a Pontiac Firebird, from the dealer who occupied this building at the time.  It has changed hands a few other times, but is now home to Groff Family Funeral Services.  Sadly we have made a few visits to the place since it has changed.

One of the main entrances to the building along Orange Street.

Northern Markethouse stood on this location at one time. It is located at the corner of North Queen St. and West Walnut Street, about three blocks from Central Market.  If it were still standing it would be Lancaster's oldest Victorian era markethouse, having been constructed in 1872.  It eventually became Lebzelter's Service Station which was Goodyear's oldest tire company in the World.  That building was torn down in 1958, replaced with this service station and tire dealership.

Central Market which I have already described.  It is located at what is now called Penn Square.  "Meet me at the market" has for decades been a phrase commonly heard throughout Lancaster County.  The market is open Tuesday, Friday and Saturday.  I have written quite a few times about my favorite items I buy at the market, but my all-time favorite would have to be the ceam-filled Long Johns that I buy every single time I go to market.  If you ever get a chance to visit Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, Lancaster Central Market must be on your list of places to visit.  It is the only remaining farmer's market in the city of Lancaster.

Another view of the markethouse.

One of my altered Polaroid prints that I have taken of Lancaster Central Market on the left.

The "Too Big For Sint Maarten" Story

Photo taken years ago at Princess Juliana Airport.

It was an ordinary day.  Standing at the head of the runway in Sint Maarten waiting for just one more plane to land.  Every year when we travel to St. Martin for vacation, we make sure to visit the Sunset Bar & Grill which sits directly next to the runway of the Princess Juliana International Airport.  Planes that land at the airport must travel over Maho Beach where some days hundreds of beach goers as well and photographers gather to document the landing of the large planes that just clear the beach and the chain link fence to the rear of it.  I have posted quite a few photos as well as written a few stories telling how exciting it is to watch and photograph the planes.  Well, the other day I saw a link on YouTube which shows the arrival of a few planes as they land over Maho Beach.  

  
Click on arrow to see the planes landing at Princess Juliana Airport in Sint Maarten.

But then I was another video titled "Too Big For St. Maarten?" and just had to click on the link to see what that one offered.  I couldn't believe what I was looking at as this gigantic plane with six engines and 30 wheels landed over Maho Beach.  It looked as if it should have taken down the fence, but luckily didn't touch it.  I was amazed and watched the video over and over again.  And then I realized it wasn't a plane landing at the airport, but a video from a computer game I was looking at.  I should have known that the plane could never have landed there, but you never know!  The video is still exciting and if you look close enough you will realize that it isn't a real plane.  Still gave me chills the first couple of times I watched it, fearing it was going to crash land in Sint Maarten.  Of course if it had crashed the first time, it wouldn't have kept it up over and over again.  It was another extraordinary day in the life of an ordinary guy.

The "The Big One That Got Away ... Really!" Story

It was an ordinary day.  Reading my online copy of LNP newspaper when my grandson bursts through the front door of our rental in Ocean City, New Jersey.  "Uncle Tad, mom lost your fishing rod!"  My sons Derek and Tad as well as grandson Caden and daughter-in-law Barbara are sharing the rental with my wife and myself along with my daughter Brynn, son-in-law Dave and granddaughters Courtney and Camille.  

Derek displaying the fish he has just removed from Caden's rod.

At about 5:30 am this morning Derek, Barbara, Caden and Camille quietly loaded their fishing equipment in Derek's truck for a morning of fishing on the bridge that runs over the bay to the north of Ocean City.  Seems that Barbara was using the fishing rod that Tad had loaned to his brother.  The same rod that Derek had taken to a nearby bait shop yesterday to have new line placed on it as well as purchase new hooks and bait.  All was going well and a few small fish were caught as they fished off a low bridge that connects the barrier island of Ocean City to the mainland.  Along the side of the bridge is a protective wall about three feet high.  Barb had placed her fishing rod along the wall after casting into the water.  

Camille fishing along the wall of the bridge.

Wasn't long before everyone saw the rod rise from behind the wall and head over the wall, down into the water.  I'm sure a lot of screaming followed as they saw the rod disappear in the waters below the bridge.  It was too great a height for Derek to dive into the water and he had no idea what would greet him if he did dive into the water.  A fellow fisherman, a native of Greece, saw what had happened and told them it must have been either a ray or a shark to be able to pull the entire rod from behind a the wall into the water below.  So, on their return to the house, Caden was picked to tell his uncle about the rod.  Uncle Tad wasn't too upset since he hadn't used it for quite some time and he had hopes of buying a new rod in the future anyway.  He now has the motivation to look for that rod that was stolen by a gigantic fish, as the story was told to me.  It was another extraordinary day in the life of an ordinary guy.

The "Landis Valley Gets On The Map" Story

This image is the only known photo showing the Landis Valley
House Hotel with the post office sign above the right-side door.

It was an ordinary day.  Walking around the small, historical Landis Valley Farm and Museum looking for the Landis Valley House Hotel.  Wasn't long before I came upon a neat red house with steps leading to the porch in front of the house.  Landis Valley House Hotel was built in 1856 by Jacob Landis Jr. at the intersection of Reading Road and Kissel Hill Road.  Not long after that the area was referred to as  Landis Valley, thus the name of the hotel.  The hotel served both local patrons as well as travelers and was a regular route for the Conestoga Wagons that traveled the roads.  Then on April 29, 1872, Landis Valley House Hotel was given one more designation: Landis Valley Post Office.  It served as a United States Post Office until 1913.  The hotel served as a popular bar and restaurant, as well as a hotel, until the late 1960s when it became part of the historical Landis Valley Farm and Museum.  

Old photo showing postmark of Landis Valley, 1907.

The hotel could accommodate up to 65 guests and had a parlor room, card room and naturally, a post office for many years.  One of the main reasons for placing a post office in the hotel was the long-standing tradition in colonial Europe of utilizing taverns and coffee houses as mail stations.  It's a fact that the first post office established in America was in Richard Fairbanks' tavern in Boston in 1639.  

Building as it appears today.

Governor William Penn established Pennsyl- vania's first post office in Philadelphia in 1683 and Benjamin Franklin served as General Postmaster there for many years before becoming the first Postmaster of the United States.  Jacob Landis Jr. joined a profession which had many illustrious members.  Guy by the name of Abraham Lincoln was postmaster in New Salem, Illonois from 1833 until that post office closed in 1836.  

Interior shot of the post office in the hotel as it appears today.

Other famous postmasters include abolitionist John Brown, novelist William Faulkner, Viee President Adlai Stevenson and President Harry Truman.  At the time the post office opened in the Landis Valley Hotel, postal rates were totally determined by weight and how far a letter or package would travel.  A half-ounce letter at the time would cost $.03.  Quite a bit difference from the $.49 it cost today.  As I walked through the post office in the Landis Valley Hotel which has been preserved, I noticed the size to be extremely small.  Noticed that there were 36 mail boxes for residents of the area to claim their postal letters and packages.  The post office wasn't a big moneymaker for the postmaster in charge, since the first year the postmaster made $21.33.  When the post office first opened, mail went from post office to post office with patrons renting a box to receive their mail.  Around 1910 the post office mailboxes were replaced with free rural delivery.  For years now, Landis Valley Museum and the Landis Valley Hotel post office has operated its "Letters to Santa from Landis Valley" program.  Young visitors to the museum can bring letters to the post office and mail their letter to the North Pole for $1.00.  Takes about two weeks for delivery!  The hotel now incorporates an old time General Store as part of it and as I wander around the place I find items that I used when I was a child.  Funny how one happens to grow old so quickly.  I did post a few stories a few years ago about my journeys around Landis Valley Museum.  You can find it by typing in "Landis Valley" in the small white search box at the top left of my blog page.  It was another extraordinary day in the life of an ordinary guy.

The "You're A What?"

It was an ordinary day.  Running the offset press in room 168 at the Manheim Township High School in Neffsville, Pennsylvania.  Helping me run box after box of #10 envelopes is my good friend Mike who has worked with me in the summer with the school district's in-house printing needs since 1980. If you're trying to figure out how many years that is, it's a long time!  My job is to make sure the envelopes feed correctly and Mike's job is to make sure the ink coverage is suitable as well as remove them from the press and stack them in the boxes from which I took them.  I really enjoy the days we run the press together since we have a chance to catch up on the lives of our families as well as what we both have been doing.  Today we talked about Mike's recent trip to San Francisco to explore the city with his wife, three grown daughters and their spouses.  Then he told me he has been writing a column for The Ephrata Review Newspaper.  

Photo of Mike appears in the Ephrata Review with his column.

Wow!  That's pretty impressive.  The newspaper was founded in 1878 and is now published on Wednesday of each week.  Paper deals with the nearby town of Ephrata and the surrounding community of Cocalico.  Mostly local news with sections on: Arts/Entertainment, Police/Fire Log, Religion, Social, Sports, Births, Obituaries, "Years Ago" and Opinion/Letters.  Mike grew up in the Ephrata/Akron area on Lancaster County and went to school at Ephrata High School where he was a stand-out baseball player.  He graduated from Millersville University and began to teach in the Manheim Township School District where I was a teacher.  Mike was an elementary school teacher who went to sign his teaching contract with the school principal as well as a young woman who was also going to teach in the same school with Mike.  That young woman, Anne, ended up being his wife after a few years.  Mike spent many summers supervising the playground at the Akron Elementary School near Ephrata when he began teaching.   The Ephrata Review was interested in publishing stories about the playgrounds that were open to students during the summer months and asked Mike if he could write a column telling of the times spent on the playground.  Didn't take long before his column began to appear in the paper.  And what a column it is.  A third of a page wide and the entire length of the newspaper column.  As we were running the press, I looked at Mike and told him I can't believe I'm working with a newspaper columnist.  Told him I just had to see what he was writing and asked him to bring in a few of the newspapers for me to read.  Well, wasn't long before I was reading a story titled "Field Day, Water Week, and golf competitions."  I'm sure those still living in the Ephrata, Akron and Cocalico area are loving his column.  Many names appear in the story from the 1970s and I can just imagine how many people are buying and reading the paper to see if their name can be found in his stories.  Now, isn't that exactly what the staff at The Ephrata Review wanted?  I loved the column, but really enjoyed an earlier column titled "APBA Baseball on the Playground."  Mike told of the game that was developed by a Lancaster resident in the 1950s which was based on a player's major league statistics.  Each player received a card about the size of a playing card with column's on it with numbers based on the previous year's stats.  To play the game you would roll dice and match the two numbers to numbers on the card to see if you had a hit, walk or made an out.  There were four large boards that you matched the number to that told the result.  Mike reported that the children loved to play the game and set up leagues for summer play on the playground.  He told of one young boy who became so frustrated while playing a game that he threw his dice over his head.  Realizing he couldn't continue without them, he searched for them.  Could only find one die so Mike gave him another set of dice and had him throw then the same direction as his original set.  They followed the flight of dice and sure enough, the second die was found.  Mike says "The love of APBA and baseball by so many on the playground led to our one day playground trip to Cooperstown."  Cooperstown, New York is where the Baseball Hall Of Fame is located.  I must say I thoroughly enjoy reading Mike's columns and hope the newspaper will keep him on after he has told all the tales he can muster about the summer playgrounds.  And to think I work with a famous newspaper columnist!  Pretty neat!!  It was another extraordinary day in the life of an ordinary guy.    

The "Schwinn Bicycles - Made In Heaven" Story

It was an ordinary day.  Talking with friends about the two-wheeled bikes we used to own.  After a few interesting stories it was my time to reminisce and I told about the bright red Schwinn that I got for Christmas when I was eight years old.  Christmas morning and my brother and I ran down the steps to find plenty of presents under the tree to open.  Year would have been 1952 and I had a few presents that were on my Christmas list.  A new bike wasn't one of those gifts though.  And, I wasn't disappointed when I didn't get one under the tree that year.  Did get a holster and cap gun as well as plenty of caps to play cowboys and indians with my neighborhood friends.  Naturally had to be a cowboy, since I had my new cowboy gun.  After all the gifts were opened, my mom and dad as well as my brother and myself jumped into the old Plymouth and headed to my Grandmother's house on North Pine Street in the city of Lancaster, PA to give gifts to my Nannan and my Aunt Doris.  

Bike much like my first bike, but mine was red and white.

My brother opened quite a few really neat gifts and then it was my turn.  Had maybe a package or two which took a minute to open and thought the gift session was over.  And then my Aunt Doris walked into the dining room and came back with the really neat red Schinn bike with white-walled tires, horn, storage pack behind the seat and a light on the front fender.  Wow!!  How is it that there are some presents you never forget?  And, this was one that I'll never forget!  I had many fun times riding my bike around the neighborhood for quite a few years.  Remember riding it with my wagon hitched to the back to the Acme Supermarket to pick up boxes of lettuce trimmings to feed to my guinea pigs I had in the back yard.  Seems that the Schwinn bike was a great bike for all types of activities.  Schwinn Bicycle Company was founded in 1895 by German mechanical engineer Ignaz Schwinn in Chicago.  It was the leading bicycle company for many years, but ended up declaring bankruptcy in 1992.  

Advertisement from the 1960s.

It was eventually purchased by multi-national Dorel Industies and became a sub-brand of Pacific Cycle.  While living in Europe, Ignaz designed a two-wheeled bike that appeared in 19th century Europe.  He emigrated to the U.S. in 1891 and eventually developed the Schwinn with the financial backing of fellow German American Adolph Arnold.  Chicago quickly became the bicycle center of the American bicycle industry.  By the turn of the 20th century over a million bikes were sold per year.  Then automobiles arrived and bike sales fell to 25% in sales in 1905.  Mr. Schwinn began to mass-produce bicycles at a lower cost to stay in business.  He then began to make motorcycles and in 1928 was third in production behind Indian and Harley-Davidson.  

Captain Kangaroo advertisement.

In 1950, Schwinn decided to grow the Schwinn bicycle one again.  Most manufac- turers sold bikes to retailers who in turn placed their name on the bike.  Schwinn wouldn't allow that and wanted their name and warranty to be with each bike sold.  Television advertising helped, especially when they advertised on Captain Kangaroo in the late 1950s.  During the 1960's they continued their dominance in the bicycle world.  In 1962 Schwinn came out with the Sting-Ray which was a "chopper" style bike with high-rise handlebars and a banana seat.  

The Predator which we bought for our son.

In the early 1980's Schwinn introduced the "Predator and the BXM style bike was very popular.  Carol and I purchased a Predator for our oldest son.  He loved it!  Wasn't long before someone broke into our garage and stole the bike.  Not sure what we bought next, but we did place a better lock on the garage door.  Then in the 1970's Japanese and European brands became popular as well as less-expensive.  By the 1990s Schwinn's market had been severely reduced to imported bicycles from all over the world.  In 1992 the company went into bankruptcy.  Then in 2001 the Schwinn Company and it's assets were purchased by Pacific Cycle which in turn was acquired by Dorel Industries.  The once great Schwinn brand had bikes made in China.  Their bikes are now sold at Wal-Mart, Sears and Kmart.  My memories of the Schwinn bicycle my Aunt Doris gave to me years ago will always remain with me.  How can something as neat as a Schwinn bike ever be forgotten?  It was another extraordinary day in the life of an ordinary guy.  

The "Images, Images And More Images - Photographic Documentation" Story

It was an ordinary day.  Just opened an email and was greeted by the faces of many famous people; a couple of notorious outlaws, a scientist, a few famous artists and the list goes on and on.  Most of the faces are in black and white due to the age of the photographs.  Some lived before black and white photography and are only sketches of the person.  And a few whom I didn't know their names because their portraiture's were taken when they were much younger than when I would have known theme for their contribution to history.  Got me thinking about one of my favorite topics: photography.  The word photography is derived from the Greek words photos ("light") and graphein ("to draw).  Word came about in 1839 when used by Sir John F.W. Herschel for the first time.  It is really a method of recording images by the action of light or related radiation onto a sensitive material.  The photographs and cameras first used are nothing like what you use today.  

The camera obscura

The Camera Obscura, known as a pinhole camera, was invented about 1000 AD, but it wasn't until 1827 that Joseph Niepce developed the first photo- graphic image with the camera obscura.  On a summer day that year Niepce coated a metal plate with an semi-solid form of petroleum known as bitumen and created the world's first image, or photograph.  But, it wasn't until 1839 that Louis Daguerre, friend and fellow Frenchmen of Niepce, invented the first practical process of photography and named it after himself.  Daguerre's daguerreotype process was done using silver-plated copper.  Then along came Matthew Brady who opened his first daguerreotype studio in New York in 1844 and made Andrew Jackson and John Quincy Adams some of his first subjects.  When the Civil War started he took a mobile studio to the battleground.  Without this photographic pioneer we may never have had images of the Civil War.  One of the photos I will show you today was taken by Brady.  So, for now, your history lesson in photography is complete, or at least as complete as it will be.  Now, if you had been a student in my photography class in high school you would have had a much more in depth history lesson than you had today.  I just didn't want to lose you or you may not have gotten to the photos.  So, here are the images, mostly in black and white, that I will share with you.  I must give credit to my daughter-in-law's mother, Etta, who knew I would thoroughly enjoy the photographs when she sent them to me.  It was another extraordinary day in the life of an ordinary guy.  PS - See how many of the images you can identify before reading the note under it.

Photograph of Edgar Allan Poe and Abraham Lincoln taken in Matthew Brady's Washington D.C. Studio in 1849.

Albert Einstein

Alfred Hitchcock taken in the 1920's.

Amelia Earhart

Bonnie Parker & Clyde Barrow

Hans Christian Anderson

Ernest Hemingway as an American Red Cross volunteer during WWI

John Wayne

Mahatma Gandhi dancing

Mark Twain at the age of 15 taken in 1860

Mother Teresa

Artist Paul Gaugin

Actress Sophia Loren

Artist Vincent van Gogh

William, Diana and Harry

Winston Churchhill

Confederate General Robert E. Lee, probably taken in black and white and hand tinted

Elizabeth Taylor

Her Majesty and Prince Philip - Same brooch, same pearls, same love

Paul Newman during WWII in the Pacific