Timeline of Harrisburg history
This is a timeline of the major events in the history of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania and vicinity.
Early America
- 1792 Pennsylvania’s canal era begins (1792–1931)
19th Century
- 1820 First bridge built at Harrisburg: The "Camelback Bridge" (a wooden, covered bridge). Newspaper The Pennsylvania Intelligencer founded; it is not The Patriot-News
- 1822 Original Harrisburg State Capitol building completed (started 1818; burned Feb 1897)
- 1833 Harrisburg Nail Works opens across the river
- 1837 Harrisburg’s first railroad (RR) station built.
- 1845 Dauphin Deposit Bank opens
- 1850 Harrisburg’s first anthracite furnace built (Porter Furnace). U.S. Census lists 1,376 dwellings and 7,834 people
- 1852 Harrisburg Cotton Manufacturing Co built.
- 1853 Central Iron Works established in Harrisburg.
- 1865 The first public transportation in Harrisburg was a horse drawn trolley between downtown Harrisburg and McClay St.[1]
- 1865-73 Expanded trolley lines (Capitol Area Transit)
- 1866 Paxton Rolling Mills built.
- 1867 Pennsylvania Steel Works, south of Harrisburg, was first in the US to produce steel ingots on order.
- 1875 Harrisburg and Middletown Omnibus Co. was organized to bring passengers to the trolley.[1]
- 1877 Central Iron Works new plant built by Charles Bailey; Nationwide RR strike: City troops guard the arsenal.
- 1885 Harrisburg’s Centennial celebration
- 1888 First electric trolley service: Served Steelton, Allison Hill, expanded areas in Harrisburg.[1]
- 1889 Market square market houses torn down. YMCA Pennsylvania Railroad Branch established; moved to 611 Reily Street in 1903.
- 1890 Second bridge completed: the Walnut Street Bridge. Harrisburg City Library opens on Market Square site.
- 1892 End of the horse-drawn trolley. The second streetcar company was formed: Line to Steelton – Oberlin and Harrisburg.[1]
- 1893 First office building opens, the Dauphin Building.
- 1894 Trolley service crossed the Walnut Street “Peoples Bridge”.[1] Flood
- 1897 Original Harrisburg State Capitol building burned.
20th Century
- 1901 Pennsylvania canal is closed.
- 1902 First automobile in city. Camelback Bridge partially destroyed by flood. Rockville Stone Bridge built. Vance McCormick elected mayor on reform ticket. New water filter plant on City Island.
- 1903 Damaged Camelback bridge removed and replaced. Hershey plant planned. Trolley service expanded to Linglestown, Hummelstown, and Dauphin. This required a consolidation of shops and car barns located at various places through the service area.[1]
- 1904 100 passenger trains stop in the city each day.
- 1905 Market Street Bridge built in the place of the old Camelback Bridge. First motion picture theater in Harrisburg. City’s first skyscraper built: United Trust Company.
- 1906 New State Capitol building dedicated.
- 1912 Riverwalk construction begun.
- 1913 The transit company reorganized as "Harrisburg Railways".[1]
- 1914 City Beautiful continues, raises money with bonds (Eggert 338). City library opened.
- 1919 African-American YMCA branch established.
- 1920 The last trolleys were acquired.[1]
- 1921 Island Park bathing beach has 235,000 visitors per year.
- 1924 First radio station begins to broadcast. Decline in trolley ridership began on both sides of the river.[1]
- 1926 City Beautiful related projects, costing $250,000. Market Street Bridge widened from 2 lanes to four.
- 1930 Bus service replaces trolley on the Carlisle to Mechanicsburg line west of the river.[1]
- 1933 YMCA Central Branch opens on Front Street: Important architecture. Three trolley lines replaced by buses: Ten buses placed in service.[1] Hotel Hershey opens. African-American YMCA branch builds Forster Street Branch.
- 1934 Bethesda Mission acquires building at 611 Reily Street from the PA Railroad YMCA.
- 1937 Hershey strike put down. The trolley company changed to Harrisburg Railways Company and remained in use until 1973.[1]
- 1938 All remaining trolley lines on west shore abandoned.[1]
- 1939 July 16: Buses replace trolleys in Harrisburg. The last Harrisburg Railways Trolley closed. A fleet of 135 buses remained under the Harrisburg Railways Company.[1]
- 1939-73 Bus service continued but riders lessened due to more auto ownership (Capitol Area Transit).
- 1947 Merchant’s and Men’s Mutual Insurance moves to Front St.
- 1950 89,554 people live in Harrisburg: Largest Standard Metropolitan Area population in city’s history. Harrisburg Standard Metropolitan Area (SMA), consisting of Cumberland and Dauphin counties, was first defined.
- 1956 Old Central Iron and Steel demolished for I82 bridge
- 1958 150 houses in Shipoke demolished for highway construction. IBM builds branch in Mechanicsburg, west of the river.
- 1959 Following a term change by the Bureau of the Budget (present-day Office of Management and Budget), the Harrisburg SMA became the Harrisburg Standard Metropolitan Statistical Area (SMSA).
- 1960 Historic governor’s mansion demolished for a parking lot. John Harris Bridge on the river opens
- 1964 Commonwealth of PA razes the Forster Street Branch YMCA for government expansion
- 1966 Penn State opens campus[2] on old Olmstead AFB. The former Forster Street Branch YMCA occupies the newly constructed Camp Curtin Branch YMCA on 2135 North 6th Street.
- 1973 Urban renewal demolishes the Penn-Harris Hotel (built in 1918). Public bus service acquired by the city from the Harrisburg Railways Company.[1]
- 1983 Harrisburg SMSA renamed the Harrisburg–Lebanon–Carlisle Metropolitan Statistical Area (MSA)[3]; Lebanon County added to the MSA.
21st Century
- 2010 The Harrisburg-York-Lebanon urban agglomeration area is defined for the first time, linking York County to the CSA.
Notes
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s Capital Area Transit (2012). "History of Transit in the Harrisburg Area". Capital Area Transit. Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, USA. http://www.cattransit.com/about-cat/history-of-transit-in-the-harrisburg-area/.
- ^ "Campus Fact Sheet". Penn State Harrisburg. http://hbg.psu.edu/about/FactSheet.pdf.
Further reading
- Eggert, Gerald G. Harrisburg industrializes: the coming of factories to an American Community (1993) 412 pages
- Ries, Linda A. Harrisburg (2006) excerpt and text search
- Seitz, Blair. Harrisburg: renaissance of a capital city (Historic Harrisburg Association, 2000)