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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Celebrating a Century and a Half: The Geologic Survey

Posted by on Nov 29, 2013 in | Comments Off on Celebrating a Century and a Half: The Geologic Survey The Pennsylvania Geo­logical Survey, offi­cially known today as the Bureau of Topo­graphic and Geologic Survey, and one of the bureaus of the Department of Environmental Resources, is one of only a very few of the Common­wealth’s executive branch agencies whose history can be traced to the first half of the nineteenth century. Created in 1836, the survey spawned three subsequent geologic...
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“A New County to Be Called Snyder”

Posted by on Nov 29, 2013 in | Comments Off on “A New County to Be Called Snyder” Snyder is a small rural county covering 327 square miles with a population exceeding thirty thou­sand. Situated near the center of the Commonwealth, it is bounded on the northwest by Jack’s Mountain, on the southeast by the Mahantango Creek and on the en­tire eastern end by the beautiful Susquehanna River. Most of the remaining boundaries are unrelated to natural features. Geologically,...
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Blair County: Center of Transportation

Posted by on Nov 28, 2013 in | Comments Off on Blair County: Center of Transportation Blair County was among the last counties created by the Pennsylvania General Assembly. One factor which delayed the establishment of an additional county in the southern portion of central Pennsylvania was geography. The rugged, eastern slopes of the Appalachian Mountains, in which Blair County was eventually located, diverted settlers to other areas. Only after the discovery of iron ore...
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Portrait of Valentine Blanchard

Posted by on Nov 25, 2013 in | Comments Off on Portrait of Valentine Blanchard Upon graduating from Lancaster’s Franklin and Marshall College in 1900, Worth B. Stottlemyer settled in Arling­ton, Virginia, where he prospered in the insurance and real estate businesses. An insatiable collector, he amassed a cache of antiques and works of art, intending to open an antiques shop in Frederick, Maryland, upon retiring. While building his enormous collection, Stottle­myer...
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This Is a Beautiful, Bountiful Earth: Joseph Trimble Rothrock and the Preservation of Penn’s Woods

Posted by on Nov 20, 2013 in | Comments Off on This Is a Beautiful, Bountiful Earth: Joseph Trimble Rothrock and the Preservation of Penn’s Woods The lush, verdant woodlands characteristic of Pennsylvania’s landscape are almost entirely second-growth forests, in existence roughly for less than a century. Had it not been for the groundbreaking work of many conservationists in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the Keystone State’s present terrain would be dramatically different. One of the most important of those...
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