Panoramics & Cycloramas

Before there was digital "Virtual Reality" , there was painted virtual reality.  

Panoramas.   

The Irish artist Robert Barker patented this  new art form in 1787: a circular painting that surrounded the viewer.  Naming it a "Panorama", from the Greek words "to see", and "all", he opened his first Panorama of Edinburgh in a specially built rotunda in Leicester Square in 1791. 

Section of the Rotunda, Leicester Square, in which is exhibited the Panorama, 1801. 

Visitors entered the circular or 16-sided building, walked through a dimly lit corridor, and climbed a spiral staircase to enter upon a circular viewing platform, where they viewed immense oil paintings depicting far away lands or events.

The Panoramic was extremely popular amongst the middle and lower classes, as it offered the illusion of traveling  to a completely different location, without the expense and inconvenience of actual travel.

Cross section of a panorama:

(A) Box office and entrance.

(B) Dark corridor and cylindrical center staircase.

(C) Observation platform.

(D) Viewer's field of vision.

(E) 360-degree circular canvas.

(F) Three-dimensional faux terrain elements.

(G) Trompe l'oeil elements painted directly onto canvas.

Panorama Mesdag, a 360-degree painted view of the beach and dunes at Scheveningen created in 1881,today can be seen at the Hague, in the Netherlands.

"Cycloramas were a very popular form of entertainment in the late 1800's, both in America and Europe. These massive, oil-on-canvas paintings were displayed in special auditoriums and enhanced with landscaped foregrounds sometimes featuring trees, grasses, fences and even life-sized figures. The result was a three-dimensional effect that surrounded viewers who stood on a central platform, literally placing them in the center of the great historic scene. Most cycloramas depicted dramatic events such as great battles, religious epics, or scenes from great works of literature. Hundreds were painted and exhibited in Europe and America during the 1800's..."

Experience The Heroic Live and Career of Garibaldi Panorama through an online video presentaton, here:

https://library.brown.edu/cds/garibaldi/panoramaHTML5/panorama_scroll.php

Bringing immersive paintings to small towns allowed the viewers to avoid “the innumerable miseries of travel, the insolence of public functionaries, the roguery of innkeepers, the visitations of banditti…and the rascality of the custom-house officers…” 

“Panoramas are among the happiest contrivances for saving time and expense in this age of contrivances. What cost a couple of hundred pounds and half a year half a century ago, now costs a shilling and a quarter of an hour.” 

In some larger cities, round buildings were constructed to house panoramas, but in most of our rural communities, traveling panorama shows came to the local opera houses.

During the 1880s, Gettysburg Panoramas were extremely popular.  Exhibits were frequently sponsored by veterans groups, and typically raised a good amount of money from the admission cost.  The Cyclorama at Gettysburg is one of those early Panoramas. 

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The Kaiser Panoramas

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In the early 1870s, the Kaiser Panorama was invented by August Furhrmann, in the German empire.  The large circular apparatus had 25 seats  and stereoscopes arranged around the outside.  

A hand tinted photographic Stereo Pair, from a Kaiser Panorama

Viewers would be shown 50 hand tinted photographic stereo pairs, in succession.  The effect was more of a slideshow, rather than a panorama, as no panoramic view was given.   Kaiser Panoramas were installed in 250 cities, and showed more than 1000 different photo series. Additional Kaiser Panoramas traveled, with some being installed at summer resorts just for  the season. " 

The Kaiser Panorama was built in the form of a cylinder  12.3 feet (3.75 m) in diameter and 7.9 feet (2.4 m) high, and was equipped with 25 stereoscopes and seats around the outside. Inside the cylinder was a "picture wheel" with 50 stere slides in a 170 x 85 mm format; a "precision drive mechanism"  rotated the wheel to place the 50 views, one after another, in the fields of view of the stereoscopes. The time required to view all 50 images was usually from 20 to 30 minutes, although the picture wheel could be speeded up when large numbers of customers."

Note - after the first world war, there was no longer an emperor.  The Kaiser Panorama was then renamed the World Panorama.

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Moving Panoramas

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 Moving Panoramas, also known as "Crankies"  became popular by 1900.  An early version of a travel film, they involved a large and very long strip of painted fabric being wound between two vertical cylinders and  then slowly unrolled before an audience.  A narrator would describe each scene as it appeared.  These Crankies were not true panoramas, bur rather "contiguous views of passing scenery, as if seen from a boat or a train window."

One example, exhibited at the the 1900 Paris world's fair, was the Trans-Siberian Express Moving Panorama. Visitors could experience the luxury on board in real railway carriages. 
"Behind the windows of four real carriages an ingenious mechanism provided the illusion of a moving train. Between a slowly rotating backdrop and a fast 'conveyor belt' with sand and stones two landscape paintings were moving at different speed, creating a parallax effect. Offering visitors a comprehensive experience, the Panorama Transsibérien included Russian and Chinese 'station restaurants'."  

This diagram describes the "Wagon-Lits" moving panorama with the shorter revolving scenery scrolls moving in front at different speeds, creating a parallax effect.
"At the bottom of the diagram are the three railroad cars (wagons). Above that is the revolving "sandy ground" which is on tread-mill-like machinery. This moved at 1,000 feet per minute. Next were low, cut-outs of bushes and schrubs moving at 400 feet per minute.  Behind that was more distant, taller scenery  moving at 130 feet per minute. The main moving panorama canvas moved the slowest at 16 feet per minute resulting in the illusion of depth, creating a parallax effect."
These train car panoramas them became popular in a variety of cities, and were also attractions at some amusement parks.  

A second, smaller, moving panorama at the 1900 World's Fair

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Toy Panoramas

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Toy panoramas were for a time popular Christmas gifts.  

At an International Panorama Conference in 2007, Ralph Hyde showed a slide of this American Panorama Toy, and described how children would put the poster on their bedroom door, then invite the family or friends to come view the show - with one child working the mechanism and another narrating.  The toys would often include manuscripts for the narrators, and even tickets for attendees.

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The Advent of "Moving Pictures" 

Movies

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On  October 19, 1878, Scientific American published a series of pictures depicting a horse in full gallop, along with instructions to view them through the zoetrope. The photos were taken by an English photographer, Eadweard Muybridge, to settle a bet between California businessman Leland Stanford and his colleagues. Stanford contended that at some point in a horse's stride, all four hooves were off the ground. He enlisted Muybridge to take photographs of the positions of a horse's hooves in rapid succession. Muybridge's 12 pictures showed that Stanford had won the bet.

Muybridge then created the zoogyroscope, in 1879 - a sequential photo projector.  At the same time, Etienne-Jules Mare fashioned a camera that could take 12 pictures per second of a moving object. The technique, called chronophotography, along with Muybridge's work, were the founding concepts for motion picture cameras and projectors.
New York City, in 1888,  Thomas Edison and his British assistant William Dickson set out to create a device that could record moving pictures.  Dickson unveiled a primitive motion picture camera, a "Kinetograph", in 1890.  In 1892 he announced the invention of the Kinestoscope, a machine that could project the moving images onto a screen. Edison initiated public film screenings in recently-opened "Kinetograph Parlors" in 1894.
By the early 1920s, "moving pictures" had so improved and perfected their technology that stereo images and panoramas were no longer in vogue, although that is not to say that they no longer existed.

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The Gettysburg Cyclorama

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In 1879,  Faul Philippoteaux, a professional cyclorama painter and artist from France, was hired to capture the Battle Of Gettysburg for the a special display in Chicago.
"Philippoteaux arrived in Gettysburg in 1882 armed with a sketchbook, pencils, pens, and a simple guide book to help him locate the site of the climactic charge. The artist spent several weeks on the battlefield, observing details of the terrain and making hundreds of sketches. To help him recall the landscape with accuracy, Philippoteaux hired a Gettysburg photographer to produce a series of panoramic photographs for his use. These images are some of the earliest detailed photographs of Cemetery Ridge, the Angle and the "High Water Mark", and the field of Pickett's Charge. Philippoteaux was also lucky enough to interview a number of veterans of the battle, who helped with suggestions on how to depict the chaos of battle."

Armed with a vast amount of information and ideas, Philippoteaux returned to his studio where he immediately set about laying out the great work. A team of assistants helped him sketch out every detail including soldiers, trees, crops, fences and stone walls, and then began applying tons of oil paint. The phenomenal work took over a year and one-half to complete. The "Cyclorama of the Battle of Gettysburg" opened to the public in Chicago in 1883, complete with a three-dimensional earthen foreground littered with the relics of battle, stone walls, shattered trees and broken fences. Visitors were awed by the painting's spectacular realism. Veterans of the battle, including General John Gibbon whose troops repulsed Pickett's Division on July 3, wrote of its splendor and realism."

In 1884, Philippoteaux was  again hired to paint a second version of the Battle, to be exhibited in Boston.  There the painting was exhibited for nearly twenty years before waning public interest caused the theater to be financially inoperable, and the Gettysburg Cyclorama shut its doors forever.  It was then purchased and moved to Gettysburg where it was restored and opened for public exhibition in time for the 1913 anniversary celebration of the battle.  In the 1940s, the cyclorama was purchased by the National Park Service, and after a massive restoration project, was opened in the newly constructed Gettysburg Park Visitor Center in 1962.  

The Battle of Gettysburg Panoramic, which traveled to Northumberland County in the 1830s and 1850s, was possibly a smaller version of the 377 feet long, 42 feet high and weighs 12.5 ton version that is today at Gettysburg. Or perhaps not.  There were at least 4 originals painted.  One is still in existence but in poor condition, in North Carolina.  Another  was cut up for use as tents by native Americans on a Shoshone Indian Reservation after the turn of the century.


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From London to Paris: A newly discovered Moving Toy Panorama

One Kaiser Panorama continued to be used into the 1960s, in Alotting Germany.  In 1969, that unit was moved to the Munic Photo Museum.  Several other units still exist.  
A list of remaining panoramas from the 19th and 20th centuries, is kept by the International Panorama Council, and can be found here: https://panoramacouncil.org/en/what_we_do/resources/panoramas_and_related_art_forms_database/

• A Tale Of Two Cycloramas https://www.nps.gov/articles/000/a-tale-of-two-cycloramas.htm
• The Crankie Factory https://www.thecrankiefactory.com/
• https://www.magiclantern.org.uk/new-magic-lantern-journal/pdfs/4009779a.pdf
• The Panorama at the 1900 Expo https://retours.eu/en/22-panorama-transsiberien-expo-1900/
• Stereo World Magazine, Volume 28
• Altick, Richard. The Shows of London. Cambridge, MA: The Belknap Press, 1978.
• Boardman, Sue and Kathryn Porch. The Battle of Gettysburg Cyclorama, A History and Guide. Gettysburg, Pa: Thomas Publications, 2008.
• Brenneman, Chris and Sue Boardman. The Gettysburg Cyclorama, The Turning Point of the Civil War on Canvas. El Dorado Hills, Ca: Savas Beatie LLC, 2015.
• Holzer, Harold and Mark E. Neely, Jr. Mine Eyes Have Seen The Glory, The Civil War in Art. New York: Orion Books, 1993.
• Huhtamo, Erkki. Illusions in Motion. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2013.
• Oeterrman, Stephan. The Panorama, History of a Mass Medium. Translated by Deborah Lucas Schneider. New York: Zone Books, 1997.
• Olin, David J, “A Public-Private Partnership and International Collaboration Save an American Panorama Treasure,” in: The Panorama in the Old World and the New, edited by
• Gabriele Koller (Amberg, Germany: Buro Wilhelm. Verlag Koch-Schmidt-Wilhelm GbR, 2010) 120-125.
• Wilburn, Robert C, ”The Campaign to Preserve Gettysburg” in: The Panorama in the Old World and the New, edited by Gabriele Koller (Amberg, Germany: Buro Wilhelm. Verlag Koch-Schmidt-Wilhelm GbR, 2010) 126-128. 

1918 Steam Railroad Map, Pennsylvania

Steam Railroad Map Of Pennsylvania
1918

                                                        Explanation [Legend #1]

Steam Railroads Show in Colors On the Map

[Legend #2]

Steam Railroads Shown In Black On Map

Industrial Railroads Shown In Black On Map

(Legend #3)

Cropped section of the map

Showing most of the North Central West Branch Valley

From Legend #2:

Red= Pennsylvania Railroad 

Yellow= Bloomsburg & Sullivan

Green= Williamsport & North Branch, Susquehanna & Eagles Mere, Eagles Mere [a

Blue= Philadelphia & Reading

Note - colors the same colors are used over and over, you might want to double check my interpretation of the legend.  Let me know if I got any of this wrong.

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And below, I took the cropped section above and cropped it into 4 sections to make it easier to see each section:

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DOWNLOAD PDF COPIES OF THE MAP

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 Eastern Side Of The Map

DOWNLOAD HERE

Western Side Of the State

DOWNLOAD HERE

The 1889 Flood In Lewisburg

 
The 1889 Flood, Lewisburg Pa

 THE GREATEST FLOOD!

 Ever Known in Pennsylvania!

The Entire West Branch Valley INUNDATED! 

Three Feet Six Inches Higher than  the Flood of '65! 

All Bridges Swept Away or Damaged. Railroads and Telegraphs Destroyed!

From the Lewisburg Chronicle, June 6 1889

 "Wednesday of last week the atmosphere became  heavy with moisture, and a somewhat unusual darkness overspread the sky, growing darker and heavier. Thursday about noon, rain began to  fall, moderately, not enough to interfere much with the Decorative ceremonies [Memorial Day], but it continued and steadily increased in volume throughout the night.

Friday it poured down from morning until night, and nearly all night. In volume it alternated from heavy falls to perfect torrents. Smaller streams swelled during night,  and began pouring into the West Branch. Rapidly the water rose in this stream until it reached ordinary flood height sometime between midnight and morning. About 4 o'clock in the morning, logs began to run in moderate quantities, gathering in quantity every minute.

By five o'clock, nearly the eastern half of the river was covered with a perfect jam of logs, running at a rapid rate, and this rushing stream continued without cessation or diminution until about four o'clock in the afternoon. 

Piles of logs and lumber landed in Milton, during the flood.

The current carried the logs at perhaps seven miles per hour, which would make this stream of logs not less than eighty-four miles in length, and. an average of perhaps 500 feet in breath ! In addition to this tremendous number of logs, plank, boards, and other sawed lumber were mingled in the jam, the value and amount of which is incalculable. 

Milton, 1889 Flood

The greatest river calamity, however, was the loss of bridges. Bridge followed bridge, span followed  span  until it seemed there were no more to follow.  The splendid railroad and highway bridge Lewisburg -built in '68 and '69, at an expense of $125,000- withstood the terrible poundings by the logs and broken bridges until part of the P. & R. bridge and a section of the Milton highway bridge, having come such a short distance, were not broken. One of these struck the third span from the eastern shore with a force that it could not resist, and it succumbed to the stroke. The span following passed through the opening without doing any further damage. But a worse fate was to follow. Other heavy bridges followed  taking span alter span, until but three spans--the western end--were left. The entire bridge had been weighted with heavily loaded cars of coal, and of course and coal went with the wreck.

Looking at Milton - where the bridge was.  1889.

All the while the water kept rising at an unprecedentedly rapid rate. It began to approach the high water mark of 1865. Soon it reached that mark, but did not stop. It stayed not in its course until it rose three feet seven inches above that historic flood ! 

This awful height, of course start led our citizens, all of whom seemed to carry the question in their countenance," What does it mean ?"

 To give an idea to those acquainted with the location and streets of Lewisburg, we give the bounds of the flood In the town as near as possible.

 Beginning at the north corner, the water reached the corner of the Dan Oswald lot corner of Front and St. Anthony street. 

On South Third street, half way between St. Anthony and the street along the brow of the hill north.

 Fifth street was covered for several squares South of the Brush Valley road.

 Market street was covered so as to be impassable for vehicles from the old race bed to the alley between Sixth and Seventh streets.

St. Louis street, from near the Reading railroad to the above alley.

 St. Catharine, up to and surrounding Sam. G. Mans's residence. 

St. George Street from and to end. This was the work of Buffalo Creek and Limestone river.

 Along the river bank, the water submerged the boat and lumber yards, and covered all the side walk of Water street from Market north to the depth of a few inches to three or four feet and rising near the junction of the L.&T. railroad and the boat yard branch, and a little south of Market street on down. 

1895 map of Lewisburg, the blue lines indicate some of the descriptions from above.

SOME OF THE DAMAGES 

Beginning where we did above, the following are a few of the principal damages; Buffalo bridge below is lying in a twisted condition its foundation.

 All the lumber in the boat yard, except a few piles along Front street, rose to the surface, waltzed about the yard, but did not float away. When the water receded, a more complete disorganization we never saw.

The lower portion of the Buffalo Mills, containing the motive works was inundated, and of course, machinery  and belting were damaged.

 For a time the water reached the a fire box of the L. & T. locomotive in its bouse.

 Mr. Bender's greenhouse and nursery were flooded, the water rising high above his house plants, and submerging was most of those in the lot.

 A ferry started over Market street, which continued for perhaps 36 hours. 

Bucknell Institute was entirely surrounded, and communication, except by boat was, for a while, cut off. The fences between St. George street and Limestone run were carried away or torn down. The water covered University Avenue from the campus gate to Mrs. Harvey's corner on St. George street. 

The gas works were badly used up. Mr. Lawshe's tenant house, at the west end of the dam, was moved away. The water was in the pump house of the water works to the top of the square of the windows. 

Halfpenny's woolen factory contained four feet of water on the first floor, reaching to the loom beams, and muddying all the extensive machinery on that floor and in the engine and drying house. They told us, however, that their material loss would not be much more than fifty dollars. The time necessary to fix things up is their greatest loss.

All the occupants of the boat yard houses were compelled, 1st, to move up-stairs, and 2d, to move to the houses of friends up town. Of course, all the cellars within the inundated portion of town were full of water, and others on higher ground suffered more or less by the inability of the gutters to carry off the water.

 Mr. Jonathan Wolfe's grain house, which stood on the river bank, is now at Winfield, four miles distant. The tops of two of the vacant bridge piers were knocked eff down Brush to the ice valley road was all that prevented us from being a complete island.

IN THE NEIGHBORHOOD.

The L. & T. railroad from the canal drawbridge to Nesbit's planing mill was buoyed up by the cross-ties and sent down the valley. East Lewisburg, Montandon and most of Chillisquaque valley were surrounded or submerged.

The iron bridge over Buffalo creek was damaged, but is now in passable condition. The bridge at Shriner's mill is off its foundation in a ruined condition. The crops in Buffalo valley are in a sad flight generally, many fields of growing grain and grass being ruined, and others greatly damaged. Fences, small bridges, etc., are swept away. Penns creek carried nearly everything along its banks on its bosom, and damaged what it left.

West of Laurelton three-quarters of a mile of railroad track went with the rest, the force being so great as to bend some of the steel rails around the trees. 

The bridge at New Berlin was damaged not beyond repair. Many of the cellars in that borough were flooded.

 The long bridge over the West at Northumberland is now represented by two spans, one at each end.  Three spans of the Reading railroad bridge at Sunbury are gone. Sunbury was generally inundated, and Northumberland, of course, sustained its share of damages.

The North Branch not having risen, saved these two towns from much greater disaster. 

INCIDENTS.

 Among the floating mass on  the river were what to be small houses with out-houses, chicken coop, etc., floating in the regular order that they evidently occupied before they were moved. It seemed as it they were held together by a submarine force. Possibly the lot upon which the building were erected was a "made" lot--that is, built up from a swamp to a proper height by edgings and other saw -mill rubbish which was still sound enough to hold together.

The Fallen Bridge at Williamsport

The most terrible features of this flood that interested this section was the fact that, while one of the bridges at Williamsport was considered safe, some forty or fifty men collected upon it, little thinking of danger. The account is that a floating saw- mill, caught in a strong eddy, was whirled against the bridge with such force as to throw it into the river with all precious freight aboard and all are reported drowned We trust the story may be exaggerated, but at this writing (Tuesday noon) it is not contradicted.

 The calm condition of the atmosphere saved millions of property. A high wind would have blown into the current anything afloat; as it was, this kind of property rose with the water, and when that receded, rested upon or near to its original place.

 We have made a rough calculation of the number of feet of timber that passed Lewisburg, and, half calculating and half guessing, we make it about one hundred and seventy-five million feet. We may miss it by a hundred million feet let us hear from better authority. 

Some twenty box cars and perhaps four hundred tons of superior coal went with the missing spans of the bridge. The rear car of the portion of the train that went down broke, and rear track is still in the bridge.

 Mail facilities in all directions except out to Buffalo X Roads and Winfield, New Berlin, etc., were cut off. 

The telegraph .and telephone lines succumbed early in the struggle, but a corps of men are now busy repairing the wires, and before we go to press, these methods of communication may again all right. 

In consequence of the damage to the gas works, the town is very dark at night, even the moon evidently having "gone back" on us. 

The eastern standing span carried several inches out of line; and the lower end: of most of the weather-boards are "frayed out" and broken off', presenting rugged appearance. 

Some hysterical people exclaimed, "Surely the world is coming au end." Up to date it has not generally been supposed that the end of the world is to come by water. 

The section of bridge and tremendous pile of lumber are lodged and grounded against a pier of the portion of the bridge yet standing.

White Deer Creek was very high, and among other damages sustained by its flood, the railroad bridge White Deer Mills was washed away.

 At West Milton, a considerable amount of damage was done, especially to the Datesman property, large amount of valuable goods having been soaked by the inundation of the store. 

Latest advices state that there are six to ten miles of the railroad ruined west of Millmont. The track is in all shapes of disorder imaginable. The tramways to the mountain saw mills are nearly if not quite all gone.

The Flood at Milton, 1889

UP THE RIVER.

 A gentleman from Nittany valley named Stover reached Lewisburg on Tuesday. He has  five good horses in his stable, yet was compelled to come afoot, because no horse could travel over the country as it is now. He reports this valley in a dreadful condition. He reports the funeral of twenty eight bodies at Cedar Hill cemetery on Sunday. These were the remains persons drowned in the vicinity of Clintondale and Mackeyville. He also reports the destruction of Mann's extensive axe factory near Mill Hall, and the almost total ruin of that valley, and great damage done to the neighboring village of Salena. This would indicate the destruction of buildings and crops of some of the most valuable farms in the State.

Williamsport, June 1889

Many more Williamsport 1889 Flood Photos HERE

 The situation of Williamsport and the low country westward is simply indescribable. The city stood in a vast sheet of' water, logs and drift floating through the windows of the best houses in the city, and four feet deep on the floor of the P. & E. depot. Logs all gone, and 50,000,000 feet of sawed timber. All the bridges and the big Beaver saw mills gone. Many persons -Some say forty, and a late dispatch to Geo. Beaver says five hundred -were drowned. This latest report we can't and won't believe without unquestioned confirmation. 

Hundreds of houses gone and the former occupants homeless. Food scarce, and fast diminishing. One report says their wasn't a chicken left in the city. Gas and electric light works submerged, and the city in darkness. Good order, however, prevails.

 The Williamsport boom did not break, as was generally supposed, but the boom chains being too short for such an unexpected flood, did not permit the timbers to rise to the surface, and the logs floated above them. 

Part of the Montgomery bridge is gone, but at this writing hundreds of men are at work rebuilding it, and trains will cross it before the last of the week.

Nothing definite from Lock Haven, except that the whole city was flooded at a depth of from three to ten feet, and all communication gone. 

Renovo suffers the loss of her bridge, an opera house, and many other buildings. The railroad there, as almost everywhere else, was washed away or displaced."

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My Shamokin & Hodge Podge- Edgar Marlock

 

"Edgar Marlock" was the pen name used for a series of articles titled "My Shamokin", in the Shamokin News Dispatch.

"Edgar Marlock" was not an individual but rather a nom de plume used by all of the staff writers who authored the columns.  The name  was formed by taking a letter from the name of each of 12 staff members. All of the reporters on the editorial staff contributed to the My Shamokin columns, some to greater extent than others.

The weekly column included a "Hodge Podge" puzzle - a word scramble, with a clue, which is especially amusing when you remember that the name Edgar Marlock was essentially, a word scramble, using letters from each of the 12 writers names.

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The Hodge Podge Puzzle

November 2 1957

"Taking a tip from some fun. provided for readers of other newspapers, we've decided to add a puzzle element to this column. We'll carry the name of a local institution of yesteryear that was known to majority of the community's residents. However, letters in the name of the institution will not be presented in proper order, but in a meaningless hodge podge.

 The institution: tymeatefhliterha.

Try to rearrange the letters to spell the name of the former local institution, a place that was loved by many residents. See if you can solve the hodge podge. The answer will appear here next week."

Answer - The Family Theater

November 12th 1960

In the following weeks column, the answer would be given, along with a list of those who had answered correctly.

[The answer to this one was Clark Brothers Grocery Store]

In December 1976, published in time for Christmas, a 100 page booklet was compiled and edited by William F. Dyer, including a selection of the My Shamokin Articles.  A copy of the book is at the Northumberland County Historical Society in Sunbury.

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Sources, links, and assorted things I saved for later
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My Shamokin

Communities Taxicab service dates back to one car in '27

See more here:

https://www.facebook.com/share/p/1VLtFFDh8o/

Cook Books

By Edgar Marlok 

My Shamokin Our correspondents, bless 'em, came through this week with a number of topics for discussion in this and succeeding columns. One of our objectives is to present not only our own memories of the past, but to include the varied reminiscences of others. Mrs. Margaret Hancock, Orange, N. J., who was born and reared in Shamokin, wrote the following about the Hodge Podge for last week:

 "For the life of me, I cannot think of a valuable asset in Shamokin that would need as many letters to spell it. It surely ought to see with all the 'i s' it has. Had I solved it, would have had to ask to have the fertilizer omitted, as it would not be so sweet in the potted plants in the living room." Mrs. Hancock, who moved from Shamokin three years ago, added a "bon mot," as follows: A good laugh a day keeps the wrinkles away."

 A local contributor to the column, whose memory possibly has been working for a little longer time than ours, definitely has been working better, writes his reminiscences about local bakeries, half of which we do not recall. He says: "Your column struck a familiar chord when reference was made to 'slabs of country bacon and smoked hams.' "I was reminded at once that bread after till is the staff of life, and how a mother would bake tempting loaves for her six or more children. She would send one of the tots to buy a penny's worth of yeast in a dedicated pitcher from the woman who lived in the basement, and the child would 'spill' half the ferment down her throat on the way home.

"Happily, mothers no longer need bake bread, for from where I sit I can see no less than six bread trucks stop each morning to stock up a neighborhood grocery. "

It may be interesting to recall the bakeries of former days and the first name that comes to mind is Mat Neely's Bakery on Shamokin Street, between Commerce and the railroad, where Captain Kattigan would 'drive up' regularly Monday mornings with his wheelbarrow to get a load of stale loaves for his pigs. "Then there was Theobold Frenk, a German baker, on Race Street in the old Clifford Block. Another shop was the Hehr Bakery on Shamokin Street, just south of the railroad, where hearth bread was a specialty. .

Still another shop practically forgotten was Eddie Christian's Bakery on Cameron Street, just west of Orange, which always swarmed with schoolboys who brought potatoes to roast in the glowing ash pit. "There was Bader's Bakery on Rock Street, just south of Webster Street. Then, too, there were Latham's Bakery and Tinley's Bakery, located, successively, on the site of the Majestic Theatre building. Joe Miller's Bakery was located on Spruce Street, just beyond Harry Unger's Drug Store. - "Surviving of the old bakeries is Henninger's on Second Street, just off Spruce.

"And, we cannot forget McClow's Bakery on Shamokin Street, where the late Dr. Fred P. Steck was head baker before he studied medicine. "As we recall, when mothers baked bread the average housewife preferred 'Pansy' Flour, by W. A.Reed, of the Shamrock Flour Mills, to costlier brands. "When J. F. Tooley and Company opened a store in the Wagonseller Building on Shamokin Street, introducing such enticing loaves as Butter Crust and Mity Nice, home baking sooi died out." Convinced that Shamokinites eat to live, and do not live to eat, we subscribe fully to the idea that tasty foods provide one of the simple joys of life for many folks. We feel certain many persons can take a mental trip back to enjoy the good bread, cakes or pastries purchased in the bakeries listed by our correspondent.

Staff of life, yes, but bread is still just a side issue with most people. Consider, however, the poor souls who must forego bread because dieting. to bushels. in sedate man he as and life. these ring the on the lived.