The Williamsport Roundhouse

 

The Roundhouse, Turn Table, At Walnut Street, Williamsport Pa

Information from fb comments, from those who know much more than I do about the railroad:

A new turn table and round house were being built in 1906.  Scroll down to the bottom under "Read more" for an 1880 article about an accident at a round house in Williamsport. The 1861 map also shows a round house.  

Roundhouse on the left.  Little League Boulevard now runs where the train tracks are in this photo.

The PRR Roundhouse in Williamsport
The left of the photo is Erie [Now Memorial] Avenue
Walnut Street runs along the bottom of the photo.
To the right would be present day Little League Blvd
Just east of the roundhouse is the boiler house
The Ash Pit is on the second track to the right

Not an aerial view like the photo above, but the best I could do.  from the ground.    the train tracks were on the right, where the road is. The round table was to the left, where "Roundhouse Field" is today.

 In this aerial view of the round house, look at the bottom, to the right of the tracks.  The Park Home (originally Herdic's Hotel) is the square building with the hold in the middle.  That hole was a courtyard.  Note the train station behind the Park building.

A view of the park home (originally the  Herdic Hotel) and train station.

See more about the Herdic / Park Hotel, here:

https://susquehannavalley.blogspot.com/2022/04/herdics-hotel-at-park-place.html

The three bay roundhouse at Walnut Street, Williamsport

Part of the turn table visible, in this 1956 photo.

Turn Table, Walnut St, Williamsport Pa

Turn table at Walnut Street, Williamsport

 "Taken in Williamsport, Pennsylvania, on 2 December 1956. Shown here (L to R) are four Pennsylvania Railroad steam locomotives poised for action: #4249, #4293, #6734, and #1496. #4249 and #4293 are I-1SA (2-10-0) "Decapods" built by the Baldwin Locomotive Works: #4249 was constructed in June of 1923 and retired in August of 1957, while #4293 was built in July of 1923 and retired in October of 1959. #6734 is an M-1B (4-8-2) "Mountain" built by the Baldwin Locomotive Works as an M-1A in June of 1930, rebuilt in Juniata as an M-1B in August of 1948, and retired in September of 1959. #1496 is a B-6SB (0-6-0) switcher built in Juniata in January of 1916 and retired in December of 1957. 

All that smoke and steam means it's really, really cold! This photo comes from a color slide set entitled "Steam on the Pennsy's Elmira and Shamokin Branches" that's produced and distributed by Blackhawk Films of Davenport, Iowa"

In this photo, the Park Home on the right (large white square) and the train station is still standing behind it. The station  was destroyed by fire on August 31 1979. It was torn down a week later. 

A cropped version of the above photo - train station on the right, behind the Park building.  Little League Boulevard it partially built, but train cars still appear to be sitting here in the middle of the photo.  

==============

Round House Field

Photos From August 2026

Gated and locked.

==================

Map Views

1861

Williamsport & Elmira Railroad

Work Shop, Machine Shop, Round House, Freight house, and Office

Sunbury & Erie Railroad Depot Grounds 

Cropped from the 1879 Bailey Map

These maps did not typically over exaggerate

1889 Map - also showing a larger roundhouse.  Combined with the 1880 article below and 1906 article at the top - I suspect there was a larger roundhouse here, and then a new one build in 1906.  I have not yet searched through newspapers for more information.

1911

Sanborn Map.  Maybe 1912?  The Williamsport Sanborn Maps are not clearly dated, I have three sets all from "1912", and these two maps are too different to both be from the same year.  Need to look online to confirm dates.

Modern Aerial View on Google Maps - outline still visible.

======================

More Photos of Trains at Walnut Street in Williamsport:

=============

READ MORE

==============

The previous article is from 1906, but this 1880 article mentions a previous round house.

"Greetings From" - About Those Large Letter Postcards

 Curt Teich Large Letter Postcard for Williamsport Pa

"Large-letter", or "Greetings From", postcards began popping up in the U.S. in the late 1920s and became really popular from the 1930s through the 1950s.  These postcards featuring photos inside large letters spelling out the location, where a popular way, before the advent of computers and social media, to show off their travels to loved ones back home. 

Curt Teich , an immigrant and pioneer of the offset printing process, began his postcard company as early as 1898.  But it was in the 1930s that the firm took off with a new process, producing what would become a wildly successful design trend of bright, graphically illustrated linen postcards.

In Teich's Chicago studio, professionally taken, but somewhat dull black & white photos would be  retouched, usi everything from mechanical airbrushes to precision sable-tipped brushes.  The images were cleaned up, colorized, and details were sharpened.  They process made a nondescript or unattractive business look clean and bright, and small towns look perfect with dazzling skies in colorful hues.

Soon Teich added "Large Letter" postcards.   "So-called large-letter postcards weren’t new when a German immigrant named Curt Teich began producing colorful linen-textured versions in the early 1930s, but he “was kind of a genius,” said Will Hansen, curator of Americana at the Newberry Library in Chicago, home to largest public collection of Teich postcards in the United States.

Teich was not the only manufacturer of the large letter design, but he is one of the best known.   "Just as Henry Ford revolutionized automobile production, Teich’s company perfected a system of mass producing large-letter postcards based on the idea that no town was too small to include."

Although the idea was that "no town was too small", in reality, many small towns were featured only in a line of text above the letters of the state. Danville and Bloomsburg are an example of cards using the same text over the Large Letter Pennsylvania.

These postcards’ popularity in the 1940s, 50s and 60s was fueled by an obsession with the automobile and the adventure of road travel. Teich and his imitators used saturated colors and simplified scenes to paint an enticing view of mid-20th-century America.

His linen-style postcards depicted an optimistic view of America, creating a unique record of national tourism and documenting the U.S. landscape from its smallest towns to its grandest natural wonders. The cards—and Teich’s runaway success selling them—also reflect an era when a boom in highway construction and an uptick in auto sales were changing the way Americans worked, played, vacationed, and communicated with one another.

For non-collectors, sending the postcards to friends and family was an inexpensive way to show off their travel. Today, travelers pose in front of murals around the country that mimic the vintage postcards and share photos on social media. 

By the mid-1950s, the Teich aesthetic began to fade and was replaced with hyperrealist, photographic postcards.

Links to Large Letter Post Card Collections:

• https://www.pinterest.com/libraryofva/greetings-from
• https://vintagraph.com/collections/1940s-50s-greetings-postcards
• https://archives.newberry.org/repositories/2/resources/1282

================

READ MORE

================

Sources:

• Quotes taken from - Part of a recurring Ap Press series, “American Objects,” marking the 250th anniversary of the United States.
• Library Of Virginia
• https://www.smithsonianmag.com/travel/immigrant-story-behind-classic-greetings-from-postcards-180970894/

Curt Teich Postcards

Established in 1898, the Curt Teich Co. was best known for its wide range of advertising and postcards of North America. By the 1920s, it was producing so many postcards with borders that they became recognized as a type dubbed “White Border Cards,” creating an “era.” Later, Curt Teich’s innovations in this printing technique directly led to the production of what we now call “linens” by the early 1930s.

History

Curt Teich emigrated to Chicago in 1895. He had worked as a lithographer in Lobenstein, Germany. In 1898, he founded the Curt Teich Company, concentrating on newspaper and magazine printing. He was an early publisher of postcards, but he didn’t begin printing them himself until 1908.

The company, which operated until 1978, was renowned for its production of postcards featuring various subjects, including North American scenic views, landmarks, events, and advertising. By the 1920s, it was producing so many postcards with borders that they became recognized as a type dubbed “White Border Cards,” creating an “era.”

Their U.S. factories produced a vast quantity of cards, making them the leading printer in the industry. Curt Teich Company pioneered the use of offset lithography, leading to the development of the popular linen-type postcard. The company aided the war effort during World War II by printing many military maps.

In 1974, the Teich Company was sold to Regensteiner Publishers, but it continued printing Teich postcards until its closure in 1978. Curt Teich’s contributions significantly impacted the postcard industry, leaving behind a rich legacy of artistic and historical significance. The Teich Company continued to operate in the same building and continued printing Teich postcards until 1978 when the rights to the company name and processes were sold to the Irish company, John Hinde Ltd. Their California subsidiary now prints postcards under the name John Hinde Curteich, Inc.

   

The Molly Maguires - Index

The Molly Maguires

An Index Of Assorted Stories, Posts, and Resources

====================

A Time Line  Of The  Molly Maguire Saga

When Truth Is Stranger Than Fiction Oddities From The Molly Maguire Saga

An Attempt to Understand The Molly Maguire Drama

Mary Catherine Faux - Witness to McKinley's Assassination, & Molly Maguire Executions

Alexander W. Rea, Founder Of Centralia, Molly Maguire Victim

The Molly Maguire Memorial In Mahanoy

The Valley Of Fear A Sherlock  Holmes Novel,  l oosely based  on the  Molly Maguires	A Movie About  The Molly Maguires,  starring  Sean Connery,  was filmed at  Eckley Miners  Village	Making Sense Of the Molly Maguires by Kevin Kenny
Library Of Congress Research Guide	Audio Driving Tours of Molly Maguire Sites

======================

ASSORTED NOTES & MENTIONS:

• On this day in local history, September 6th 1869 - The Avondale Mine disaster. 111 workers, mostly welsh, were killed. Later investigation showed it was caused by a design flaw in the mine shaft, but early on, the Molly Maguires were blamed. Read more about the disaster at Wynning History: https://wynninghistory.com/2019/03/04/avondale/

• In 2026 I read the book Centennial by Fergus M. Bordewich, "about the great fair of 1876".  I found it to be much more about the politics of the nation around the time of the Worlds Fair than all that much about the actual fair, but it was interesting, nonetheless.  There's a chapter on the Molly Maguires, and the author connects that saga to the railroad riots (unions).  It was interesting, something I had never thought through before, and I need to make a time line to look more at the correlation between the two.  On Amazon https://amzn.to/4wYVBQS  ( I did disagree with the authors statement that there had been no real record of murders before the Pinkertons got involved...  there was an astounding number of unsolved murders in that time frame. 

• One hundred years after Kehoe's execution, in January 1979, Pennsylvania Governor Milton J. Shapp signed a letter memorializing Kehoe's posthumous pardon.  https://kehoefoundation.org/john-kehoe/