PHOTOS PROVIDED Several baseball uniforms were found in the attic of the Heisey House Museum, with no information about years, sponsoring organizations or team names attached. The “B” in some may stand for Blanchard. Anyone with information is asked to call 570-748-7254.

Welcome spring!!

Mark your calendars for these fantastic events in April and May:

— April 25: Wines, Shines and Brews in The Wilds will be at the Clinton County Fairgrounds from 2-6 p.m. Cost is $30 pre-sale and $35 at the door. Wines, shines, brews and cider tasting will be available along with a variety of vendors, live music and food trucks. Visit www.wineinthewilds.com for more information and discount tickets.

— May 10: Mothers’ Day Tea featuring “Sybil Ludington, Revolutionary War Heroine” presented by her descendant, Beebe Fultz. Reservations will be required and more information will be in the May “News and Views.”

— May 15 and 16: Indoor yard sale at the Poorman Gallery with a special “Preview Night/Wine & Cheese” on Thursday, May 14, for a small fee. Again, more information in May.

PHOTOS PROVIDED Several baseball uniforms were found in the attic of the Heisey House Museum, with no information about years, sponsoring organizations or team names attached. The “B” in some may stand for Blanchard. Anyone with information is asked to call 570-748-7254.

Our fundraiser to improve the Heisey’s sidewalks “Bricks That Build America” commemorating America’s 250th year is continuing with the ordering deadline being May 31. Pick up an order form at the Heisey or print one from our website to add your name to history.

Several baseball uniforms were found in the attic, with no information about years, sponsoring organizations or team names attached. We think the “B” is Blanchard, but don’t know the sponsoring union #8705. The second and third are Mill Hall, but again we need years and team names. Please call 570-748-7254, email info@clintonpahistory.org or visit www.clintonpahistory.org.

FROM THE COLLECTION

By Kathy Arndt

One of the most informative items in our collection about early life in our county is the International Magazine of Industry’s special edition. The monthly magazine, described as a “Review Journal of American Progress” in art, commerce, manufacturing and finance, published brief descriptions of local businesses, institutions and citizens. In collaboration with the weekly Clinton Democrat newspaper, the Institute published their review of Clinton County in December 1909.

PHOTOS PROVIDED Several baseball uniforms were found in the attic of the Heisey House Museum, with no information about years, sponsoring organizations or team names attached. The “B” in some may stand for Blanchard. Anyone with information is asked to call 570-748-7254.

While many of the buildings housing the businesses are still part of our landscape, few of the businesses still exist. The Fallon (1856), Gibson Monuments (c1856) and the college (founded in 1873 and opened in 1877) are a few of the exceptions.

Although there were many more, nine hotels in the Lock Haven area and 10 in Renovo were listed in the magazine.

Most hotels at the time offered their guests not only “sleeping rooms,” but also the use of an office, reading rooms, parlors, a restaurant/cafe and a well-stocked bar.

Many of the large scale industries noted in the magazine no longer exist in our area.

The six brickyards employed hundreds of workers. According to the journal, the Queens Run Fire Brick Company was the first to produce a clay fire brick in the United States. The Lock Haven Fire Brick Co. produced six million bricks annually. By 1903, however, competition arrived in the form of the Lock Haven Construction and Concrete plant built on the corner of Jay and East Walnut streets. The company’s annual capacity was 80,000 building blocks and one million paving blocks.

The listed big breweries and bottling companies have also disappeared from our area.

In 1874, Rudolph Widmann gained full ownership of Lockport’s Mountain Spring Brewery that had been established in 1860. His brewery eventually covered five acres and included a mechanical refrigeration unit and a bottling plant. The capacity of the brewery was 20,000 barrels annually.

Ferd C. Lucas, a German immigrant, founded the Castanea Brewery in 1884. Using the then-pure water of the Bald Eagle Creek, Lucas and his sons supplied beer to the citizens of every town in Clinton County.

Both breweries survived Prohibition, Lucas by selling ice instead of beer, but each closed early in the 1940s.

The Binder’s Brewery was established in Renovo in 1865 and was taken over by the Binder family in 1872. The author of the section of the magazine about Binder’s wrote the following: “It is not only as a beverage that beer and porter have a standing in the list of food products, but also as a pure and stimulating tonic for which they are recommended by leading physicians of the world.” Binder’s might have closed in 1934.

Three bottling companies were included in the industrial journal.

The Lock Haven Steam Bottling Co. on East Church Street manufactured carbonated soft drinks and sold beer, porter, imported and domestic wines, corks and flasks.

The Clinton County Bottling Works, established in 1902 was in the Old Market House building (the current site of Fox’s Restaurant). That plant sold the “famous St. Mary’s Beer… and the well-known Market House Whiskey.”

Mr. Robert Hays, whose bottling plant was located on Grove Street, manufactured carbonated soft drinks and bottled beer, ale, porter, wines and liquors. His specialty was the “celebrated Lang’s Beer.”

Several types of smaller scale businesses in the magazine also no longer exist.

There were four dry goods stores listed in the area in 1909. Dry goods are items that were sold using dry measures rather than liquid measures. Those items included fabrics, carpets, clothing, flour, beans, soap and paper. As store owners began to expand their stock in order to compete with the newer general and department stores, the term “dry goods stores” began to disappear.

Horses were still a common form of transportation in 1909. Stores still used delivery wagons, hotels used wagons to take their guests to and from the railroad depots and automobiles were still a luxury.

Livery stables were common in the business district of Lock Haven. There were five liveries in Lock Haven and one in Renovo, two blacksmiths and a harness maker. Located in the business district, the liveries offered horses, wagons, carriages and light rigs for rent as well as stables for local residents to house their horses.

There were some other interesting details about the 1909 business community of Clinton County.

Jewelers were often opticians who gave eye exams, sold and repaired glasses. There were several tailors, seamstresses and a milliner who had shops in Lock Haven. There were 12 grocery stores, two meat markets, four laundries, two drug stores and three cigar manufacturers, listed in the journal.

A.N. Gann was an undertaker in Renovo and the owner of a general store that happened to have a department for the sale of “everything essential” for a funeral.

However, my award for the most diversity in the stock of a store goes to Waite’s Bazaar that was located where Gio’s 222 Hair Salon is now located on East Main Street, beside the former Elks building.

The magazine noted that the Waite ran a garage for the sale and storage of automobiles, a machine shop for the repair of automobiles, stocked a large number of agricultural implements and represented nine of the largest insurance agencies in the world.

While reading the International Magazine of Industry, I found myself wishing that there was a similar journal covering Clinton County in the 1960s.

A future project, perhaps. April Fool’s. Way too much work for me!!