Memories of an undeveloped West End, 1951 [I Know a Story column]

The year was 1951, and my parents and I lived in a rented house located at 928 Manor St. in Lancaster. There were plans in place to create a new road to be named Hershey Avenue. It just so happened that our house sat right in the middle of where the new road would begin.

We were lucky to relocate nearby at 503 Pearl St., where my parents lived for the next 48 years. Our previous house on Manor Street was lifted and relocated to the lower parking lot of the bank and became the Alliance Hardware store. It was eventually demolished many years later.

History

Paying tribute to slain President Kennedy: In D.C., 1963, with a few cents and a suitcase [I Know a Story column]

ELAINE D. KURCEBA | FOR LNP | LANCASTERONLIN

Try to imagine: There was Manor Shopping Center, no Annunciation Greek Orthodox Church, no Bright Side Baptist Church and no homes. As kids growing up, we had a fort in the woods where the Greek church is today.

At the corner of what is now Hershey Avenue and Wabank Road was the Smokey Valley Ranch. The little creek was known to us as Crayfish Run.

A farm existed where the Baptist church is now, and cows would graze in the nearby field.

When Hershey Avenue was being constructed, a large circular metal pipe was placed under the road surface to allow the cows to have access to the grazing field now on the other side of the road. That pipe has long since been removed.

Nostalgia

Reconnecting with that first kiss, 64 years later [I Know a Story column]

DONNA LAPHAM | FOR LNP | LANCASTERONLINE

The house, next to the bank on Manor Street where a garage is today, manufactured clay pots, and the owners of the house at the corner of Manor and South Pearl raised pigeons with many coops in their backyard.

Quite a difference 72 years can make.

Today, as you pass Hammond’s pretzel bakery and are sitting at the light at South West End Avenue and Manor Sttreet, instead of a view of Hershey Avenue, you would have been looking at the front door of the house at 928 Manor Street — my former home.

The author lives in Lancaster.

If you know an interesting story, please write it in 600 words or less and send it to Mary Ellen Wright, LNP editorial department, P.O. Box 1328, Lancaster, PA 17608-1328, or email it to features@lnpnews.com. Please include your phone number and the name of the town you live in.