Monday, September 17, 2012

Readers discuss postcard of old Lancaster asylum


One of the postcards I featured on Saturday — of the County Alms and Asylum in Lancaster, Pennsylvania — became a (very) minor viral hit on Facebook and provoked a good bit of discussion there.

I'm re-posting some of those Facebook comments here because they add a lot to a discussion I hope to be furthering in coming days and weeks.

Comment thread from Papergreat's Facebook page
  • Whoa, very cool. This no longer exists.
  • Is the actual building though something else today?
  • Does anyone know where exactly this was?
  • It was at King and Reservoir according to my dad. He says he remembers it from his childhood. He also says there was a farm on the property.
  • 900 East King St.
  • Such a cool building!!
  • Isn't it where the Lanc. Co. Children and Youth Building is next to Conestoga View and across from Stevens Trade.
  • I remember that being there
Comment thread from People of Lancaster (PA) Facebook page
  • Where is that?
  • E-town1
  • Where in E-town?
  • Need a good asylum? I've got a 1- and a 3-year-old. Come over to my place any g'damn day or night of the friggin week!
  • This isn't the DOC training center in E-town. It's the old almshouse which was at King and Reservoir according to my father. He lived a few blocks away during his childhood.
  • What is now Conestoga View?
  • It no longer exists. He believes that it was torn down in the sixties.
  • Yes, it was where Conestoga View is now. It was the county "poorhouse". I found my great-great-grandmother there on the 1920 Census.

Footnote
1. For non-Pennsylvanians: "E-town" refers to Elizabethtown, a Lancaster County borough that dates to 1753. Its original settlers were mostly Scots-Irish and Pennsylvania Dutch (whose name for this place is Betzischteddel). Elizabethtown was previously mentioned in the Papergreat post "Klein Chocolate Co. of Elizabethtown analyzes Fannie's butter fat."

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