BIRTHDAY: Happy Birthday, ‘Round the Square!
While many things have changed in the past 67 years, readers of the first column saw much the same kind of local chatter then as now. Tidbits in the Dec. 19, 1949, column included a story on a lost Zippo lighter being returned, hunting stories, usage of “Allegany” and “Allegheny” and a list of holiday happenings.
We hope to still be chatting in 67 more!
GIFTS: We know it’s getting really close to Christmas, but we wanted to pass along a gift idea that reader Laura Ishler shared that will surely appeal to anyone interested in local history.
“I received a wonderful book about our area as a Christmas gift and I wanted to recommend it to your readers,” she writes.
“It was just released and is called “Wood Hicks and Bark Peelers” by Ron Ostman and Harry Little. It is the story of William T. Clarke, a photographer who roamed McKean, Potter and Elk County area logging camps circa 1900. He photographed the logging industry, and the men, women and children who lived and worked there.
“Clarke’s photographic plates were found in dusty boxes and beautifully restored by the authors who spent years compiling the logging history of our area. My Great-Uncle John Lecker and his brother-in-law Clarence Hafer of St. Marys were two of the men photographed by Clarke and included in this book.”
Neat. It’s even more interesting to know some residents might find family connections in the book, too.
Laura noted the book has more than 100 full-page photos, another 100 pages of historical accounts and an appendix, and it can be found on Amazon.com.
As the Amazon write-up she passed along reads, “The work was demanding and dangerous; the work sites and housing were unsanitary and unsavory. The changes the newly industrialized logging business wrought were immensely important to the nation’s growth at the same time that they were fantastically — and tragically — transformative to the landscape.”
