Excerpts and summaries of news articles from the former Intelligencer Journal, Lancaster New Era and Sunday News, focusing on notable, newsworthy or simply odd occurrences from the county’s past.
25 years ago
On June 1, 1999, Lancaster city residents and cycling enthusiasts from other areas lined the streets to watch professional cyclists zip through downtown.
The eighth annual First Union Invitational Bicycle Race brought its usual day of excitement and traffic-clogged traffic to downtown Lancaster.
The bicycle race, which began in 1992 under the name Core States Hamilton Classic, was the product of Mayor Janice Storks’s presidency as an opportunity to bring people to downtown Lancaster.
This photo, taken June 1, 1999, shows racers competing in the First Union Invitational bicycle race passing spectators on Fairview Avenue.
The 1999 race had an exciting finish, with two crashes on the final laps that sent the top two drivers sprinting to the finish line. Denmark’s Jakob Pill completed the grueling, hilly 91-mile course in 3 hours, 19 minutes and 42 seconds, winning by just one second over Canada’s Michael Barry.
The race was held annually until 2007, when it moved to Allentown.
Headline:
Scientists worry about disease escaping from the island
South Africans vote in second open election
Students return to Columbine
See the June 2, 1999, Intelligencer Journal here.
50 years ago
At the end of May 1974, Lancaster’s new “Goodwill Ambassador” was introduced. She wore gold slippers, a Robin Hood hat and green tights.
Pixane (aka Jane Norman) was a Philadelphia-based children’s television show host. She appeared regularly on Dutch Wonderland alongside other regional TV personalities such as Chief Halftown and cowgirl Sally Starr.
By 1974, her eponymous television show had spread beyond the Philadelphia market with syndication in other parts of the country, and Dutch Wonderland owner Earl Clark signed her on as the official spokesperson not only for Dutch Wonderland but for tourism in the county in general.
Not only did she continue to perform to entertain children in the parks, but she also appeared regularly on television talk shows from Boston to Chicago, promoting Lancaster County as a tourist destination.
Headline:
20,000 Britons flee from explosion scene
The IRS is trying to ease audit fears
‘Planet of the Apes’ to become a fall TV series
Check out the Sunday News from June 2, 1974 here.
75 years ago
In June 1949, an unusual solution to Lancaster’s growing parking problems was proposed: building a five-story parking garage on top of the Central Market building.
As Lancaster County’s population grows and more people own cars, parking has become a major issue for the city. Underground parking was considered, but the cost of excavating a three- or four-story building below ground would have been prohibitive.
Hence the search for on ground options.
The Central Market plan called for enhancing, updating and repairing the existing market building, above which would have been constructed a 360-car “industrial-style” garage, with ramp access from both Market Street and the side alley of Penn Square.
(This plan never came to fruition, and perhaps for good reason, but a large parking garage was eventually built just half a block away at Orange and Prince Streets.)
Headline:
The West’s Berlin Plan is announced
UN pledges $85 million to lagging countries
Pennhurst investigation request
Check out the June 2, 1949 Lancaster New Era here.
100 years ago
Anna Spackman.
In June 1924, 16-year-old runaway Anna Spackman returned to her Lancaster home after a three-week absence, during which she had cut her hair short, dressed in boys’ clothes, and joined a gang of pickpockets and safecrackers.
Upon returning home, the girl told her story to police and her parents.
She decided to run away from home for “good fun” and met up with 23-year-old Alfred Stauffer, who asked Anna to join him and his friend Clyde Grube, also 23, in a plan to run away to Columbus, Ohio.
To save on travel expenses, they changed their destination to Redding, where they took rooms in a cheap hotel, where Anna changed her appearance and learned the skills of safecracking and pickpocketing from Stauffer.
After three weeks of “wandering the streets” and losing all their money playing craps, Stauffer and Groove take jobs as laborers and tell Anna that they will need to start stealing to make a living.
At that point she abandoned her plan, turned herself in to police and returned home.
Her mother was overjoyed at her daughter’s return and lamented that her daughter’s misbehavior was “all due to the influence of the movies.”
Headline:
Nine killed in passenger train accident
Austrian youth attack chancellor
See the Lancaster Intelligencer of June 2, 1924 here.
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