RIVERFEST
June 28, 29 & 30

Head to the Susquehanna for Riverfest on June 28-30, 2024! Susquehanna National Heritage Area (NHA) and Rivertownes PA, USA have partnered to commemorate the Civil War burning of the world’s longest covered bridge. In June 1863, Confederate forces marched into Pennsylvania and spread across south central counties, raiding, and sacking small towns. Columbia and Wrightsville joined together to protect Lancaster from the same fate. After a short battle, outnumbered Union troops and local volunteers set the wooden covered bridge that crossed the Susquehanna River ablaze. This act stopped the Confederates cold. They retreated west to a location in Adams County and, just two days later, that Army battled Union forces in the Battle of Gettysburg.

Conquer the Bridge Burner Challenge Run & Paddle Race, a multi-sport race tracing the paths of the 1863 bridge burners. Riverfest is a weekend-long celebration of our river towns’ heritage and recreation. Susquehanna NHA, Rivertownes PA USA, and our heritage partners have created a range of experiences that tell the amazing stories of our past. Learn about the burning of the bridge story through several different heritage walks, talks, and trolley tours! Thanks to our heritage partners. Check out all the recreational trails that meander through our historic industrial landscape at the River Expo. Looking to discover on your own? Discover self-guided adventure options from Columbia Crossing River Trails Center. There are over 100 miles of trails, 10 scenic overlooks, and over 2 dozen heritage sites in the Susquehanna National Heritage Area.

SNHA invites our community members to get involved with Riverfest now! Athletes are welcome to rise to the challenge and sign up for the Bridge Burner Challenge today. Racers receive a finishers medal and t-shirt to show off their win! Save big on race fee with early race registration before May 1, 2024. Race registration is available online. Volunteers are welcome to join us to help racers and provide other event support. Get involved in Riverfest Weekend! Visit riverfestpa.com to sign up to be a part of Riverfest Weekend.

There’s still an opportunity for our local businesses to be involved through sponsorship of this event. Sponsors have special access to event experiences and support all our heritage partners. Check out sponsor information below. Show your support for the amazing history of our river region!

Questions or press inquiries: Megan Salvatore 717-449-5607, msalvatore@susqnha.org

Susquehanna NHA Holiday Bucket List

Get ready for snow filled backgrounds, cozy nights inside, cold weather hikes, and more with SNHA’s Holiday Bucket List! whether you are a local resident or holiday visitor, we are inviting you to come explore Susquehanna National Heritage Area’s winter activities. With 25 ways to celebrate the holidays at local businesses, events, and landmarks, there is something fun for everyone!

Experience our winter wonderland with the Holiday Bucket List this holiday season. Conquer the cold! Let’s make it an outdoor holiday. Imagine taking in the beautiful winter landscape as you frolic and play all winter long on trails in the Susquehanna Riverlands! Go dashing through the snow at one of our local nature preserves!

If the cold weather isn’t for you, the holidays are a perfect opportunity to curl up in your favorite chair next to the fire and go on a literary journey of the Susquehanna River corridor.

East, drink and be merry! This festive period is a time for catching up with family and friends.  Enjoy your time off strolling through the Rivertowns and taking in the twinkling light displays with your loved ones.

 

The Susquehanna NHA Holiday Bucket list is active from November 1, 2023, through January 31, 2024. Complete at least five items to receive a uniquely designed Susquehanna National Heritage Area sticker!  Share your bucket list experience by snapping photos, posting them to social media, be sure to tag @SusqNHA in your post. Use the digital version. Download your Bucket List and get started! Pick up a paper copy at Columbia Crossing River Trails Center, 41 Walnut Street, Columbia, PA or Zimmerman Center for Heritage, 1706 Long Level Road, Wrightsville, PA.

 

Thank you Sticker Mule for making great weatherproof stickers!

 

 

 

  Happy Holidays from your friends at Susquehanna NHA!

RiverRoots: Stories of the Conestoga River

River Roots is Susquehanna NHA’s blog series featuring history from York and Lancaster Counties that showcases the Susquehanna River’s historic, cultural, and natural resource contributions to our nation’s heritage.

Susquehanna NHA is pleased to introduce guest blog writer, photographer and author of The Conestoga River: A History, Donald Kautz. This is the fourth and final blog post in a four-part series on the Conestoga River by Mr. Kautz.

RiverRoots Heritage Blog

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Lancaster’s Historic Waterway

This is the fourth and final article in the series covering a brief history of the Conestoga River. The first article described the conditions prior to European settlement. The second article covered the colonial period and the importance of the river for transportation. The third article covered the Victorian era and described how the river served the conflicting services of recreation and waste disposal. In this article we will look at the impacts of that use (or misuse) of the river’s resources and what is being done to mitigate those impacts.

Sewage Treatment

As we moved into the 20^th century, raw sewage was a major problem. Sewage entered the river at various points along the river, especially near the city of Lancaster. Lancaster City, like many older cities, has a combined sewer system where storm runoff and household sewage are mixed in the same system. This water was all returned to the river in three main sewer outfalls and two smaller ones. The dam at Levan’s Mill, about a mile below the city, prevented the sewage from flowing out of the city area.

Between Water Street and Levan’s Mill on low flow days, the river water contained about one-fifth raw sewage. The bottom of the stream was covered with a heavy deposit of sewage sludge. The river would be covered in foam on wash days. It was claimed that the area below the Rock Hill dam smelled like dirty wash water one hundred yards away from the river.

In the early twentieth century, pleas began to be heard to clean up the river. In 1906, the commissioner of health decreed that a dam be built below the intake of the city water works to prevent contaminated water from backing up into the water supply. WW1 intervened and no action was performed during the war years.

On January 3, 1920, an article in the Lancaster New Era, stated, “The stream with its possibilities for beauty, pleasure, usefulness, and healthfulness is now relatively unused, largely by reason of the discharge of the city’s raw sewage into it. Proper sewage treatment is urgently needed to remedy the present situation and is the first step toward making Conestoga Creek a valuable asset to the community.” The city put forward a plan to sell bonds in the amount of $825,000, approximately half of which was designated to build a sewage disposal system. The city held a special election on the referendum in May. The measure was voted down by a margin of three to one.

During the next decade and a half, there were many pleas and arguments on the urgent need for a solution to the city’s sewage problem. The February 1931 bulletin of the Lancaster Chamber included the headline, “What Shall It Be—Scenic Beauty or Open Sewer?”

Finally, in October 1932, plans for two sewage plants were presented to city council. The North Plant would be built on the Ranck farm east of the city and the South Plant on the site of the old power plant at Engleside. The North Plant began operating at the end of 1934, while the South Plant began operations in early 1935. At last, a major source of pollution in the river was mitigated.

Today, the system has the capacity to fully process the sewage load during normal water flow. But owing to the nature of Lancaster’s combined sewer system, the plants can become overwhelmed during periods of heavy rain, at which times raw sewage would still make its way into the river.

Dr. Ruth Patrick

In 1948, a team of scientists from the Academy of Natural Sciences in Philadelphia, headed by botanist Dr. Ruth Patrick, spent the summer wading the Conestoga and its tributaries studying the plants, fish and exceptionally beautiful microscopic creatures with glass-like coatings called diatoms living in the river. Dr. Patrick developed the principle that the best way to determine the effects of man-made pollution in a stream was to study the organisms living in and near the water. The types of diatoms present in the water will identify the type of pollutants that are present. Dr. Patrick’s approach was to employ a team of scientists with expertise in various disciplines in biology, chemistry, and physics. She chose the Conestoga because it suffered from a variety of pollutants including sewage, fertilizer, and toxic substances from industry. Dr. Patrick invented a device called the “diatometer”, a plastic box containing microscope slides that could be placed in the water to collect algae samples. Her survey of the Conestoga was the first comprehensive water quality monitoring effort in North America. In 1949, she published a paper titled “A Proposed Biological Measure of Stream Conditions, Based on a Survey of the Conestoga Basin, Lancaster County, Pennsylvania.”

Earl Rebman

Lancaster retailer, Earl F. Rebman, served as president of the Lancaster Salvage Committee during World War II and later became president of the Lancaster Chamber of Commerce. During a public meeting in Lancaster in 1946, Rebman proposed the concept of a public boulevard along the Conestoga with parks, open space, and a convention hall as a “veterans of all wars memorial”. Ira Landis, who owned the old Conestoga Park tract, offered that riverfront property to the city at no cost as a seed to start the Conestoga Boulevard project. Unfortunately, the city did not accept Landis’ generous offer and the property was sold to private developers.

Ten years later, at a meeting of the Millersville Men’s Club, Rebman again pitched the idea of the Conestoga Boulevard and asked if the club would support an association to begin work on such a project. The club approved the idea and on April 12, 1956, the Conestoga Valley Association (CVA) was formed. The CVA planned to build a scenic boulevard along the Conestoga from Brownstown to Safe Harbor. The CVA also planned to eliminate stream pollution, reduce soil erosion along the banks, restore fish and wildlife, preserve historical buildings, and provide recreational areas of great natural beauty.

On June 15, 1958, the CVA dedicated two recreational areas for public use along the Conestoga. The first was located at the confluence of the Little Conestoga Creek and the Conestoga River, and the second area was near Safe Harbor. The CVA was also instrumental in many other projects in the Conestoga watershed. The restoration of President James Buchanan’s tomb, Rock Ford, the Andrew Ellicott House, the Hans Herr House, markers for the Martin Meylin Gun shop and one for Robert Fulton were all projects made possible by the association. So far, the Conestoga Boulevard remains an illusive concept, however efforts to reserve the riverfront for public use continue. For example, the Conestoga Greenway trail opened in 1999 to provide a walking trail along the river on the south side of the city.

Trash and Runoff

All throughout history, people have viewed the river as a place to dispose of trash and unwanted items. The river is assumed to be an endless flow of water that washes away anything that is thrown or dumped into it. The local scuba clubs know that the best places to look for artifacts in the riverbed are under bridges and at the sites of old bridges. People had the habit of disposing of things by throwing them off the bridge as they traveled across. It is not wise to wade the Conestoga in bare feet because in some areas, the bottom is littered with broken glass.

Even today, people will dump piles of trash or building supplies on the banks of the river under the assumption that they will eventually get washed away. One of the most common items seen today in and along the river are tires. Tires do not float, and they do not degrade; they just sit there stuck in the mud, causing a hazard and an eyesore. While dumping is a serious problem, not all the trash found in the river was deliberately dumped there. Much of it comes from littering or garbage spillage on the land that is later swept into the river by runoff.

The Conestoga River Club

The Conestoga River Club formed in 2021 as a nonprofit dedicated to education, conservation and improvement, including litter cleanups, restoration work with volunteers, more river access and better launch and take-out points. Todd Roy is the club’s founder and president. The club seeks to foster a connection with the river by providing public access for fishing and boating and organizing frequent opportunities for the public to become involved in river cleanup events. To date, volunteers have collected almost three tons of trash in and along the Conestoga. The club’s website is at https://conestogariverclub.org/

Conclusion

I hope you have enjoyed this trek through the history of the Conestoga River. What will happen next has not been written yet. The decisions and actions we take today will affect the stories that follow. It is good to look at the past to understand how we got to where we are today and to, hopefully, learn from mistakes that were made in the past. We do not want to be too critical of the people who came before us. They were acting on the knowledge and goals that they had at the time. But we can look at our current practices with a critical eye to ensure that we are making the best use of the resources that we have and with an eye to the future so that our children and grandchildren will be able to enjoy these resources in the same or, perhaps, better condition than we inherited them.

“Not Turner’s noted crook of Lune,

Nor Byron’s wide and winding Rhine,

Nor Burns’ banks of Bonny Doon

Nor boasted Tweed, nor lauded Tyne,

Not Delaware nor Brandywine,

Nor Spey, nor Tay, nor Don nor Dee,

Nor Shakespeare’s Avon, still more

fine.

E’er seemed so beautiful to me—

As tranquil Conestoga!”

-James D Law

If you would like a copy of my book, you may order one on my website at www.donaldkautz.com.

Meet the Guest Writer Donald Kautz

I grew up and still live among the beautiful farmland and rolling hills of Lancaster County, Pennsylvania. I have been interested in photography my entire life (starting with a Kodak Brownie box camera) but have gotten more serious with the hobby after my three children have become adults. I am a retired software engineer which probably explains why I enjoy the technical aspects of digital photography post processing as much as capturing the images in the first place. I enjoy landscape photography and love to photograph scenes around Lancaster County, focusing on the Conestoga River and the remaining water-powered grist mills that may still be found around the county. I am interested in the history of Lancaster County and have written a book about the Conestoga River.

RiverRoots: Stories of the Conestoga River

River Roots is Susquehanna NHA’s blog series featuring history from York and Lancaster Counties that showcases the Susquehanna River’s historic, cultural, and natural resource contributions to our nation’s heritage.

Susquehanna NHA is pleased to introduce guest blog writer, photographer and author of The Conestoga River: A History, Donald Kautz. This is the third blog post in a four part series on the Conestoga River by Mr. Kautz.

RiverRoots Heritage Blog

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Lancaster’s Historic Waterway

This is the third article in the series in which we are taking a journey through time on the historic waters of the Conestoga River. In the first article, I covered the conditions of the Conestoga prior to European settlement. We looked at how the Conestoga watershed looked very different than it does today. The second article covered the colonial settlement era. We saw how the river provided transportation for commercial endeavors from the fur trade to the slack-water canal.

In this installment, we will cover the Victorian era. During this time, the river ceased being a means of transportation, but recreation became the primary focus. And, as the population grew, the urban areas depended on the river as a source of water and as a means for waste disposal.

Ice

Ever since colonial times, the river was a source of ice for the city and surrounding area. In the winter, when the river was frozen, men would cut the ice into large blocks using iron saws made for the purpose. The ice blocks were stored in icehouses that lined the riverbank. These houses could be as much as three stories tall and were packed with ice from floor to ceiling. The ice blocks were covered in straw and sawdust to prevent melting. Throughout the year, but especially during the summer months, the ice man would make his way through the back alleys with his horse-drawn cart bringing ice to the people who had iceboxes in their homes. Sometimes the boxes were built into the wall with an outside opening so the ice man could refill the box without needing to enter the home. In other cases, the delivery man had to enter the kitchen with a block of ice in his tongs to be placed into the family’s icebox. When manufactured ice became available in 1895, the need to harvest ice from the river declined. Household refrigeration started to become available in 1925. Today, we simply need to push a button on the front of our refrigerator door to fill our cup with crushed ice.

Bringing Water to Lancaster City

For the first one hundred plus years after the founding of the town of Lancaster, its inhabitants had to rely on wells, pumps and springs for their water supply. But as the city grew, these became inadequate to serve the population. As early as 1789, General Hand, who was serving as burgess at the time, lamented about the millions of gallons of water going to “waste” in the Conestoga River every year. But the prospect of bringing water from the river up to the town was considered an impossibility at that time.

Thirty-six years later, the state legislature authorized the formation of the Lancaster Water Company and granted the company to sell stock. Not much happened until 1831 when the legislature also granted the city the right to levy taxes to support the water works. The city hired engineer W.B. Mitchell to survey the possible options, and finally in 1836, the city built its first water plant. The plant was located at the site of an existing grist mill and dam southeast of the city at the lower end of City Mill Road. A water wheel powered a series of pumps that carried water from the river up to a newly built reservoir on King Street next to the county jail. On Washington’s birthday, February 21, 1837, operations began, and water from the Conestoga began to flow through water plugs in the city. Wastewater returned through various conduits back into the Conestoga, including any materials that were added to the mix in the process.

The abundance of water inspired some of the more well-to-do citizens to install bathtubs in their homes. The first to do so was Jacob Demuth, who installed a tub in 1839. Soon after, there were found to be eight more tubs in city homes. At this, the city council assessed a bathtub tax of three dollars annually. Nine out of ten doctors of that time were unconvinced that such frequent bathing was healthy. The tenth doctor, Dr. John Light Atlee, begged to differ, and installed a tub in his home in 1849. Even though the cholera outbreaks of 1832 and 1854 were blamed on “misty clouds of putrefying organic matter decaying along the streams and canals,” Dr. Atlee believed the disease might be caused by some tiny organisms he could see in his microscope. He was proven correct thirty years later when germ theory became better understood.

In 1888, the old water plant at the city mill was replaced with a new pumping station along the Conestoga River near the railroad bridge on Grofftown Road. Two large steam pumps operated with a daily capacity of eleven million gallons. These were placed on a reserve basis in 1929, when eight electrically driven and three gasoline-powered pumps were installed. The current water-treatment plant located along the Susquehanna River in Columbia was constructed in the 1950s. The Grofftown Road plant was removed in 1976. A small reserve pumping station is located across the river next to Conestoga Pines Park.

Recreation

Following the Civil War into the beginning of the twentieth century, various kinds of recreation became popular. Lancaster City had parks on both sides of the city, Wabank, Gable’s Woods, and Maple Grove on the West side, and Conestoga Park, Williamson Park, Rocky Springs and Peoples’ Bathing Resort on the East.

In 1854, a group of investors from Lancaster purchased two tracts of land at lock #3 of the Conestoga Navigation Company, which included an old tavern, several mills and a miller’s house and approximately sixteen acres of land. They replaced the old tavern with a grand hotel that they named “The Wabank House”. The house measured 105 feet long and 45 feet wide and had four stories and an attic. It boasted one hundred rooms and a dining room that could seat three hundred persons. Forty “colored” waiters were employed to serve the many guests. The entire structure was surrounded with wide verandas on the first, second and third floors.

In spite of its great popularity among the Lancaster elite, the hotel was not profitable. The mill and other properties not related to the hotel were sold to the miller Daniel Overholtzer in 1855. The board listed the hotel property for sale in 1857, but there were no takers. The company went into foreclosure, and the hotel came into the possession of Mr. Overholtzer. Overholtzer sold the hotel building to Samuel Lichtenthaler of Lititz in 1863. Lichtenthaler was the owner of the Lititz Springs Hotel. He disassembled the Wabank House and transported it to Lititz. It took one hundred four-horse wagonloads to transport it. Lichtenthaler reconstructed the hotel on the square of Lititz adjacent to the Lititz Springs Hotel. The two buildings were connected by a corridor and were together known as the Lititz Springs Hotel. The new addition opened on July 4, 1864. The hotel operated at that location for a decade until it was destroyed by fire on July 31, 1873.

Not far from Wabank, on a hill above the Conestoga sat the hotel at Gable’s Woods Park. Built by Jacob Gable sometime in the late 19^th century, the park was a popular picnic spot into the early 20^th century. The old hotel was torn down in the 1970s. Aaron Summy opened West End Park on the Little Conestoga in 1899. The park earned the name “Maple Grove” because of the many Maple Trees on the property. In 1912, Ralph Coho converted the park into an amusement park including a roller rink,  a dance hall, a roller coaster, and a large swimming pool. The amusement park closed in the early 20^th century.

Conestoga Park was located on the west side of the river just below Witmer’s Bridge. In 1890, David Burkholder laid out a driveway along the Conestoga that was called the Conestoga Boulevard. The boulevard was a mile and a third in length and was designed for driving horses and carriages for pleasure rides. Racing and bicycles were prohibited. The park included a boat house along the riverbank and a large theatre at the top of the hill that was the site of many performances. Trolleys operated by the Pennsylvania Traction Company, as it was called at that time, provided transportation from the city to a loading platform near the theatre. The park was popular for picnics, and rowboats were available for boating on the Conestoga. Regattas were held regularly, for which boat owners would decorate their crafts and thousands of people lined both sides of the riverbank cheering for their favorite.

Rocky Springs began as a hotel in 1855. Samuel Demuth purchased the estate in 1882 and enlarged the park. Demuth Park became a popular picnicking destination.  John B. Peoples leased the park in 1890 and added various amusements including bath houses and a sandy beach.

In 1896, Peoples built his own resort across the river from Rocky Springs. Peoples Bathing Resort was a popular facility for swimming and boating. A large water slide located at the northern end of the park provided thrills for the more adventurous. The resort included a skating rink that was alleged to be the largest in the county. A miniature electric railway provided transportation between the resort and Conestoga Park.

Meanwhile, Rocky Springs came under new ownership and Herman Griffiths and Emma Wiener were installed as the managers. Griffiths and Wiener added a steam merry-go-round and a dance pavilion. They also built a theatre and a roller rink. The Jack Rabbit roller coaster was built in 1918 and a large swimming pool added in 1921. The park installed the famous Rocky Springs Dentzel carousel in 1924. The Wildcat roller coaster replaced the Jack Rabbit in 1928. The Conestoga Traction Company operated trolley service to the park on a two-line track that ran from the city down through the Sunnyside Peninsula.

Steamboats on the Conestoga

At the entrance to Conestoga Park, just below Witmer’s bridge were the riverboat landings for three paddlewheel steamboats. Rocky Springs operated the Emma Belle and the Evelyn B. The Emma Belle and Evelyn B. each sported a 50 HP steam engine powering stern paddle wheels. John Peoples owned and operated the Lady Gay. The Lady Gay had a 20HP engine. The three steamboats operated on the approximately one and a half mile stretch between Witmer’s Bridge and the City Mill dam just below Peoples’ Park. In fact, it was the City Mill dam that raised the water level high enough for the boats to navigate safely.

A roundtrip ticket from Conestoga Park to Rocky Springs on the Emma Belle or Evelyn B was 10 cents. Mr. Peoples charged only 5 cents on the Lady Gay for a round trip to his park and provided a free shuttle ride across the river to Rocky Springs. The proprietor of Rocky Springs sued Peoples claiming he was using the Rocky Springs dock without permission. The court ruled that since the dock was floating in the river, it was public property.

The Evelyn B. was destroyed in a flood in 1902. The Emma Belle was put into dry dock soon after. Peoples Resort had to close because raw sewage was making the river unfit for bathing. The Lady Gay made her last voyage in 1915.

Electric Power Generation

In 1897, the newly formed Lancaster Electric, Heat & Power Company purchased the water rights at the Wabank, Slackwater, and Rock Hill dams. These dams had previously served as locks for the Conestoga Navigation Company. The Wabank plant supplied electricity for Lancaster and Pequea Townships. Electricity generated at the Slackwater plant was transmitted to Engleside to provide power to Lancaster City. The Rock Hill plant provided power for Manor and Conestoga Townships. Electrical generation on the Conestoga River continued for about forty years, closing in 1946.

From the first European settlers until the first part of the twentieth century, the prevailing philosophy was to harness the rivers and other natural resources to produce profit and prosperity to the growing population. But after World War II, it became apparent that this philosophy was causing irreparable damage to those natural resources. In the next, and last, installment in this series of articles, we will look at those impacts and what is being done to mitigate them along Lancaster’s Historic Waterway.

The next article in this series will delve into 20th Century Struggles and 21st Century Dreams of the Conestoga River. If you would like a copy of my book, you may order one on my website at www.donaldkautz.com.

Meet the Guest Writer Donald Kautz

I grew up and still live among the beautiful farmland and rolling hills of Lancaster County, Pennsylvania. I have been interested in photography my entire life (starting with a Kodak Brownie box camera) but have gotten more serious with the hobby after my three children have become adults. I am a retired software engineer which probably explains why I enjoy the technical aspects of digital photography post processing as much as capturing the images in the first place. I enjoy landscape photography and love to photograph scenes around Lancaster County, focusing on the Conestoga River and the remaining water-powered grist mills that may still be found around the county. I am interested in the history of Lancaster County and have written a book about the Conestoga River.