2022 Retrospective, 2023 Plans

Well, here we are again for another end-of-year wrap-up post! As those of you who have been with me for a while know, I like to end the blogging year with a final post which shares some facts and figures related to the blog, acknowledges certain persons, and talks about what I have in mind for the coming year. Also, because I work in retail, I've developed the habit of doing this at the end of November so that I can take the month of December off from blogging. I do miss it and look forward to getting back to it in January, but at this time of year - between helping frantic customers (and coworkers), doing my own holiday preparations, and dealing with unpredictable Pennsylvania weather - I need all the extra sleep I can get.

In last year's post I made the comment that 2022 didn't even sound like a real year. I think 2023 sounds even less like one. 

Anyway, let's wrap up the year together!

Veterans Stadium, Philadelphia, Philadelphia County

Here we are, the final blog post of 2022! Well, almost - next week I'll be sharing my annual wrap-up post, where I talk about the statistics of the blog and the new friends I've made and what I've got in mind as I head into the next year. I will then be radio silent, apart from occasional posts on Facebook, for the month of December. (Why? Because as my longtime readers know, my day job is retail. That pretty much says it all.) In 2023, I'll be heading into my fifth year of this blog, which kind of astounds me.

We're going to close out the active blogging year with a visit to a place that has been gone for many years. Unlike many of the buildings I've profiled on this blog, however, this one is like the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia - I've actually been inside. I grew up roughly an hour's drive away from Philadelphia, depending on traffic anyway, and the two big settings for much of anything in those days were Veterans Stadium and the Spectrum Arena. Nothing else really compared to the two. Both were part of the South Philadelphia Sports Complex; both were home to Philadelphia pro sports teams (baseball and football at the Vet, hockey and basketball at the Spectrum); and both were popular venues for concerts and other large-scale events. Both are also gone.

First Iron Rails, Danville, Montour County

It took me longer than usual to finish putting this together, partly because a storm knocked out my internet for a few hours at one point in the week. But it's mostly because we're heading into that time of year where everything happens all at once, especially since I'm in retail, which is why last year I decided to take the month of December off from blogging. I'll be doing that again this year, so look for the annual wrap-up post at the end of the month.

Anyone who's been reading this blog (or any of the other countless sources of information about our commonwealth) for a while knows that Pennsylvania is full of firsts. During my visit to Montour County earlier this year, I encountered this one, which is probably one of the lesser-known firsts, but railroad enthusiasts might be familiar with it.

Railroading in the United States dates back to around 1830, at which time the first locomotives were brought here from Europe. By that point, railroads had been in general use in England's northeast landscape for roughly twenty years. These earliest trains were drawn by horses (hence the use of the term even today of "horsepower"), and then later engines used steam or, more commonly, coal. Railroad tracks, meanwhile, were another story, and they're the focus of this week's quest.

Indian Jasper Quarries, Vera Cruz, Lehigh County

I've been wanting for some time to do this post, but my past attempts to visit the location in question never worked in my favor. But that ended up being a good thing! The Longswamp Township Historical Society invited their members and the general public to join them on a visit to the Upper Milford Historical Society to learn about the jasper quarries of the Lenni Lenape, and so off I went.

Our guides were John Fegley and Neil Moser of the UMHS, and as Neil put it, they "learn something new every week" in the organization. John in particular is an absolute fount of knowledge about the jasper quarries, which are so much the pride of the area that the community of Vera Cruz uses a jasper arrowhead as its emblem. 

Fort McClure, Bloomsburg, Columbia County

There's some interesting news from the PHMC, the ones who keep putting up these markers and therefore give me something to do in this blog each week. They've launched a new initiative called the PA Humanities Discovery Project, which they describe as "an effort to map, network, and celebrate Pennsylvania's wonderfully rich humanities landscape," and they're looking for informative contributions from historians, preservationists, archaeologists, and anyone else who works with Pennsylvania's heritage. To find out more, and possibly contribute your own experiences, check out their article here.

For this week's quest, we'll head back to scenic Columbia County. When I wrote about Fort Wheeler back in August, I mentioned that the story of Moses Van Campen continued in the history of Fort McClure, so let's resume telling that tale.