York Agricultural & Industrial Museum

           Years ago I wrote about my favorite museum, the Jimmy Stewart Museum. I just found my second favorite, the York Agricultural and Industrial Museum. Read More

We began our tour in the Transportation Galley, a huge room with a loft above. Among  the other vehicles that this room contained loomed a Conestoga wagon and a trolley car. The full-sized trolley car contained  a few benches where we sat to watch a fascinating video made from 8mm movies taken when trolley cars actually traversed the streets of York. in the early 1900s. 

Upstairs in the loft, we found some very cool cars, all made in Pennsylvania. Two stood out. The first one, a two-passenger, white Hanover Roadster, had been manufactured at the Hanover Motor Car Company in 1922 and advertised at the time as “the cheapest automobile in the world.” What did it cost? $300. The second one, a 1917, five-passenger, bright red Pullman, had been constructed at the York Pullman Motor Car Company and sold for $740.

The Inside of the Conestoga Wagon

After walking through a huge doorway, we found ourselves in a room with agriculture relics. Quite a few had been built by the A. B. Farquhar Company in York. We found their huge threshing machine, 1850 apple cider press, 1900 portable steam engine, and 1925 potato planter.

Taking up about a third of the room from floor to ceiling, a working grist mill towered over us with all three floors exposed. We climbed up through it. I enjoyed the skill with which the museum people exhibited the workings of the mill. They exposed parts and labeled them so that the basics of a mill could be easily understood.

We wandered through the next section called local industry and viewed many interesting machines. I especially loved seeing the many printing presses from different time periods as well as the cases that held the letters, upper cases and lower cases. Anyone understand where we got the names for our big and small letters of the alphabet, upper case and lower case?

The final section of the museum, the Hall of Giants, contained, among other things, the huge

1917 Pullman

A-Frame compressor from an ammonia refrigeration system that had been manufactured in York. The invention enabled a meat company in Wichita, Kansas, to utilize large blocks of ice when shipping their products in refrigerated railroad cars to Eastern United States.

A-Frame Compressor

I highly suggest visiting the York Agricultural Museum for its educational benefits and for the pure enjoyment of seeing sights no longer visible in our cities, farms, houses, and small towns.