Alvira Pennsylvania, Before The Bunkers

 

Today Alvira is a ghost town, littered with TNT bunkers that replaced the farm houses and stores during the war.  But once, Alvira was a town like any other, in our Central Susquehanna Valley.  Here's a look at some of the photos and stories from before the government confiscated the land and bulldozed the buildings.

Benjamin Pawling purchased a large tract of land in 1820. He immediately began subdividing it, and selling it off, and by 1825, the area was becoming a village, as houses and shops were erected. The 1880 Census for Alvira lists a physician, a painter, a grocery, a bartender, a merchant, a blacksmith, a carpenter, a shoemaker, and more.

The original village was named Wisetown, after an early settler and shoemaker,  Henry Wise.  By 1864 Wisetown was renamed Alvira. 

1899 photo of Clarks General Store

Henry Buss and ? Foresmen are shown on horses.
Children Ida Fegley Ballie, Ralph Metzger, Savilla Baker Armstrong, Martha Foresman, Ruth Metzger Decker, Mae Metzger Meek, Lettie Clark Remly, and Fred Metzger on horseback. In back from left to right are: Effie Breon Trye, Wells Kennedy and Elmer Breon at cycle, Jacob Clark and his wife Charlotte, and Emma Breon.

H. Elmer Breon, Watch Maker & Jeweler, Alvira Pa

Eagle Mills Flour Sack

Evars & Phillips, Alvira PA

[On Display at the Montgomery Library]

POST OFFICE

May 1907

The Alvira Post Office

IN MAIL SERVICE FIFTY-FIVE YEARS

POSTAMSTER BUSS, OF ALVIRA, MAKES A RECORD 

FIRST COMMISSION In  1852 

 He Carried Mail on Horseback Thro the Mountains and Had Many Thrilling and Interesting Experiences -  Post office is Discontinued. 

The post office at Alvira, this county, was recently discontinued, and the retiring postmaster, John D. Buss, is one of the oldest, if not the oldest servant of the postal department in a wide distance.

 Mr. Buss Is seventy years of age and has been continually in the service since he was sixteen years of age.  His first commission he got in the year 1852, when he carried mail on horseback from Muncy through White Deer Valley over the mountains thro Nippenose Valley to Jersey shore Up the Pine Creek to English Center and Texas, fording the creek twenty eight times between teh last named points, there being no bridges at the time.

 From Texas he passed into Tioga county, on to Wellsboro, then to the old White Corner postoffice In Potter county, and to Knoxville and return to Muncy. This trip he made weekly or fifty-two times a year. He can recite many thrilling and interesting experiences during the long time he served as postmaster. 

He received his commission as Postmaster at Alvira under Postmaster General John Wanamakaer and has held it ever since. The office is  now absorbed by rural delivery and  Mr Buss has retired to private life in his declining years.

 His wife, formerly Miss Mary Breon, daughter of Daniel Breon, of Alvira, Btill performs her household duties, and this aged and respected couple are passing gently and happily down life's decline. Three children have been the fruits of the union one daughter, Mrs. A. L. Krick, or Alvira. and two sous, W.E. and Henry, both of Williamsport.

SCHOOL

The One Room School at Alvira

1896 Class Photo

W.Y. Baker Teacher

In 1931, The Alvira School was taught by David Watson.  The school was razed in 1942, along with the Stone School.

HOMES

The farm of Dr. William E. Metzger, Alvira Pa.

The Decker Home

The Solomon Home

Bruce & his wife Mary "Blanche" Solomon, on the porch of their home.  In 1942, Blanche refused to leave, and had to be carried off the porch in her rocking chair.

CHURCHES

The Washington Presbyterian Church was organized sometime before 1800.  The church was not torn down when the TNT plant was built, but was dismantled in the 1960s.  foundation of this church can still be seen as you enter the cemetery, at the end of Alvira road.  It's in this cemetery that Elias Sechler [beneath this granite slab lies a confederate rifle bullet...] and TNT bunkers sit right against the border of the cemetery.

The Messiah Lutheran Church, or Pine Knot Church, was also dismantled in the 1960s.

Homecoming service 1937

May 23, 1937

Alvira Evangelical erected its first building on January 7, 1877, on Mill Road, near Spring Creek, and it was known as the Spring Creek church.  In 1885 the building was moved to the village of Alvira.  The building was abandoned in 1942 when the government took the entire area for an ordinance depot.  The congregation relocated to and eventually purchased (in 1954) the Mt. Zion Lutheran Church on Pike Peak Road and is now St. John’s UMC

The Last Easter Service At The Old Stone Church, 1942

On March 7 1942, residents gathered at the Christ Lutheran Church, where they were told that the government needed their land for the war effort, but that they would be able to repurchase it after the war ended. The land was too polluted by the TNT plant to ever be farmed again.  Read more here:

https://susquehannavalley.blogspot.com/2019/03/the-alvira-bunkers.html

Maps

1920s Map of Alvira, as remembered by Viola Weaver

Alvira Before The Bunkers	History Of Alvira & The Bunkers	The Stone Church
Shooting Range At The Game Lands	There are frequently sunflower fields in the Game Lands, great places to take photos!  Where exactly they are located changes from year to year.  This was where to find them in 2020.	Here Lies A Confederate Bullet

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January, 1904

On February 13th 1900, a defective chimney caused a house owned by Mr. Albert Miller, the butcher in Alvira, to burn to the ground.  The house was occupied by Mr Charles Koch.

On June 4th 1921, 8 year old Bernest Younkin either fell or jumped from a truck he was riding on.  He was run over by the back wheel, and died from his injuries at the Williamsport hospital.

October 24th 1929

Alvira Farmer Is Fine Potato Grower 

It one were to revert to a common expression heard on the streets these days. John L. Shireman, of Alvira, "knows his potatoes." Not only that, but a lot of other folks would also know the potatoes grown by Shireman if they saw them mixed up with u tot of other tubers.

 Into the hands of Attorney W. E. Schnee, Mr. Shireman placed a potato which was grown on his farm near Alvira. It was a perfect specimen and weighed exactly two pounds and two ounces, as solid s a rock. Mr. Schnee remarked to the writer that a bushel of potatoes of that size would certainly pay for one subscription to a newspaper as was the custom in the old days. 

Be that as it may. if Mr. Shireman raises such fine potatoes in dry weather, which is said by farmers to be . no good for -the growing of potatoes, - what ' kind of potatoes would he raise if the weather were ideal?

June 1988 Alvira Reunion

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