The Main Street in the days of the Trolley Line (1938?)
The town in which I work is called Lansdale.
Lansdale is a borough in Montgomery County, Pennsylvania, 28 miles northwest of Philadelphia. Early in the twentieth century, its industries included agricultural implement works, a canning factory, foundries, brickyards, a silk mill, and manufacturers of cigars, stoves, shirts, rope, iron drain pipe, and glue.
Today, most of the town is residential in character.
Lansdale was incorporated on August 24, 1872, and was named after Philip Lansdale Fox, chief surveyor for the North Pennsylvania Railroad which later became the property of the Reading Railroad.
Lansdale has a large rail yard smack dab in the middle of it. The Reading Railroad went bankrupt in the 1970's and first Conrail and now, CSX owns the property. My office is just a couple blocks to the left of the base of the water tower. The water tower is a looming presence out my window.
Lansdale Library
The library and the apartments my Grandparents lived in are on the same street and on my daily walk to the Post Office.
Lansdale is home to a Kugel ball, which is a 2,200-pound dark grey granite sphere supported by a very thin film of water pumped from beneath its base.
The Kugel Ball is located in Railroad Plaza, adjacent to the SEPTA R5 Lansdale train station.
Jenkin's Homestead
The region's first inhabitants were Native Americans, followed by European settlers. One of these early pioneers was Jenkin Jenkins, a Welsh immigrant who claimed a large parcel of land as his home. Jenkins is generally accepted as Lansdale's first permanent resident with his 1795 farmhouse the oldest existing structure in the borough.
Since the name of the first area settler was already paid in tribute at nearby Jenkintown, the town was named after the railroad's prominent surveyor.
6 comments:
Great post and very interesting. I've never been to Lansdale, but I've seen the signs for it along the turnpike. Looks like a nice place, Iggy. (how about Norristown next?)
Lansdale looks like a really neat town to work in. I love the old architecture. Interesting Post.
Looks much like where I grew up. Complete with railyard smack dab in the middle. When you stood on the bridge that crossed over from the housing tract we were in to the main part of the Village, you could look down the tracks to the next village over....actually the next 2 villages.
Very interesting post, Iggy. Seems like a nice place to work. :)
I've been trying to get some pictures of "my neighborhood" but the weather has not been cooperative. I live on the shoulder of Methacthon Hill and the views are super... when you can see them - LOL - the humidity and haze has kept me from taking a couple pictures from the top of the hill.
Lansdale doesn't have a brdige over the tracks anywhere - the trains come through and traffic stops moving when until they move through - but you cen see a long way up and down the tracks - the countryside is rolling and the tracks look like roller coaster rides.
A company I worked for from 1990-2001 had a plant in Horsham, and that plant had a processor for grinding and such that was located in Lansdale. For the life of me, I can't remember the name of it though. I might possibly have been through or very near Lansdale. There was a restaurant around there that I've been to, I want to say it was the Boar's Head, but I could be wrong.
Post a Comment