Roads and Rails in Pittsburgh’s North Hills: How Transportation Fast-Tracked 20th-Century Suburban Development

Posted by on Feb 24, 2025 in | Comments Off on Roads and Rails in Pittsburgh’s North Hills: How Transportation Fast-Tracked 20th-Century Suburban Development The North Hills of Pittsburgh today resembles the suburban landscape clustered around many other American cities, dotted with housing subdivisions, roadside shopping centers, schools and too many traffic lights to count. But a little more than a century ago, this part of Allegheny County was like a rural outpost, a sparsely settled land of forested hillsides, rolling farmers’ fields, and the...
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Autocar: Master of Load and Road

Posted by on Feb 24, 2025 in | Comments Off on Autocar: Master of Load and Road THE PENNZOIL AUTOCAR LORRY MADE HISTORY ON ITS FIRST TRIP <STOP> CARRIED 5964 GALLONS GROSS LOAD 65000 LBS OVER SIXTY MILES OF HILLS AND MOUNTAINS FROM ROUSEVILLE TO ERIE IN TWO HOURS FIFTY NINE MINUTES <STOP> ONE HOUR AND SIX MINUTES BETTER THAN PREVIOUS BEST RECORD TIME BY ANY BULK HAUL UNIT <STOP> RETURN TRIP IN ONE HOUR AND FIFTY THREE MINUTES In 1932 the Autocar Company of...
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The Early Days of the William Penn Highway: How Present-Day U.S. Route 22 Got its Start

Posted by on Nov 30, 2021 in | Comments Off on The Early Days of the William Penn Highway: How Present-Day U.S. Route 22 Got its Start At the dawn of the automobile age, the major roadways crossing Pennsylvania were rutted, dusty, farm-to-market thoroughfares traveled mainly by horses and wagons. Many of these were still privately owned turnpikes, some with wooden-plank road surfaces. Most towns had improved streets, but the paving, if any, usually ended at the city line. Stagecoach lines still operated here and there, but...
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Sure to Attract Much Attention: The Advertising Genius of Milton S. Hershey

Posted by on Dec 29, 2020 in | Comments Off on Sure to Attract Much Attention: The Advertising Genius of Milton S. Hershey Milton S. Hershey, the man behind the chocolate bar, was an innovative and resourceful manufacturer who used a variety of traditional as well as unconventional strategies to both advertise and attract attention to his products. He was born in Derry Township, Dauphin County, on September 13, 1857. After spending the first eight years of his life in Dauphin County, he lived 10 years in Lancaster...
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Mt. Lebanon Historic District

Posted by on Oct 25, 2019 in | Comments Off on Mt. Lebanon Historic District Although Henry Ford had introduced the Model T in 1908, making the automobile affordable for the average American, it was not until the 1920s that automobile ownership really began to rise. In 1910 there were 500,000 cars in use. By 1920 the number rose to 9.5 million. By 1930 it sprang to 27 million. With so many cars, people who worked in cities were no longer tied to railroads or streetcar...
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Philadelphia’s Forgotten Inventor: The Untold Story of Rudolph M. Hunter

Posted by on Jun 13, 2017 in | Comments Off on Philadelphia’s Forgotten Inventor: The Untold Story of Rudolph M. Hunter The lot at 3710 Chestnut Street in Philadelphia is all but empty now – a low scraggly hedge in front, a scattering of shade trees, a long concrete walk on the right, skirting Penn Newman Catholic Center. It’s hard to imagine the fanciful Victorian mansion that once adorned the site – a “pretty residence of brick,” the Philadelphia Press unimaginatively put it in...
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World War I Ambulances

Posted by on Mar 13, 2017 in | Comments Off on World War I Ambulances The face of warfare had changed by the time America entered World War I. For better or worse, the conflict was characterized by advances in technology, including air combat, chemical weaponry, and more effective firearms such as machine guns and automatic rifles. Automobiles also began supplementing horse-drawn wagons for a number of uses on the battlefront, including ambulatory medical care. In...
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The Pennsylvania Turnpike, From Tollbooths to Tunnels: Rediscovering America’s First Superhighway at 75

Posted by on Apr 12, 2016 in | Comments Off on The Pennsylvania Turnpike, From Tollbooths to Tunnels: Rediscovering America’s First Superhighway at 75 Few Pennsylvania-born celebrities have made the kind of splash that the Pennsylvania Turnpike did when it first arrived on the scene in October 1940. Its 160 miles of limited-access, four-lane paved highway across the Alleghenies were hailed as America’s answer to the Autobahn, Germany’s highly regarded network of high-speed “super roads.” After the war, as the United States’ population expanded...
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The Ship Hotel: Afloat with the Lincoln Highway’s Most Unusual Landmark

Posted by on May 8, 2015 in | Comments Off on The Ship Hotel: Afloat with the Lincoln Highway’s Most Unusual Landmark In 1931 the first and only baby was born at the Grand View Point Hotel, 18 miles west of Bedford, Bedford County. Little Clara was the pride of her grandfather Herbert J. Paulson (1874–1973), a Dutch immigrant who had built the hotel on the side of a mountain along the winding, two-lane Lincoln Highway. Clara grew up in the hotel, which “Captain” Paulson turned into the ship-shaped...
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Restless Soul: A Portrait of Bayard Taylor

Posted by on Nov 30, 2013 in | Comments Off on Restless Soul: A Portrait of Bayard Taylor A century ago the name of Bayard Taylor was familiar in most American households and in many homes in other parts of the world. Every cultured person in the United States at that time had read Bayard Taylor’s writings, or had heard him lecture. Old and young alike were enthralled by the tales he told, and no wonder, for Bayard Taylor had been everywhere and had done everything. When he...
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