Harrisburg telegraph. [volume] (Harrisburg, Pa.) 1879-1948, 1918-12-12
El1rtttttIy Gfrat

man can get q line on community
by glancing through a telephone
| directory. And he can get started
without setting tongues wagging.
Some newspapermen have told how
they got to know the names of the
main people" by lying in bed read
ing the telephone directory in their
room in the hotel ornamenting the
big town quite a few miles away
from the place where they had to
go TO work. And by the same token
you can get line on the way your
town is growing If you only use your
wits and cease thinking that news
papermen people have uncanny ways
OF finding out things because they
use their eyes 1t used to be said
that Leonard II. Kinnard made the
Bell Telephone directory here i'm
pressiVe for its lists of names be-
cause he studied the city directory
first and got TO know what the town
looked like. Now the telephone
directory gives you a pretty fair
line ON how Harrisburg is growing
| don't mean by the number OF sub
scribers, but by where they live. 1T
was quite a shock the other day in
hunting number to find alongside
of 1T street address, which by the
simple process of recalling what
mum bers began at the streets which
have names and putting it beside
the numbered street. gave a loca-
ton which year ago was the mid
die of field. And then you get
on Derry street which makes you
think you are out in West Philadel-
phia where the march of the num-
bered streets is so fast that the en-
, eri riFan ns.ff, 4.
power in the mornings to catch up
with them to start work. Or you
will find that a number devoted to
memories of a store where you
bought some things you liked few
years ago is now a tier of flats and
that a corner out on Allison Hill
where you got out of an automobile
one evening two summers ago and
bought ice cream at a Sunday school
class festivalis now a drugstore.
'days have come when we are
comm en9ing to refer to numbered
streets in the twenties and thirties
without wondering where they are
and putting just a bit of local pride
into the enunciation of the high
number when we have a stranger
with u.s.. but there is more than one
Harrisburger who has felt like talk
ing to Wildwood when visitor finds
that he does not know the streets
or the numbers of the attractive
section known as Cameron extension
and that his recollection of Twelfth
street stopped when the days it did
not go much below Lochiel Hill
school l know two men of affairs
in this city who bought a nice din
ner for some one else because they
insisted that certain number would
be a brickyard. That was few
years after George Shreiner got busy
in the section above North street
and east of Fifteenth. The last
recollection some people have of
big property near the Reservoir is
that there used to be an orchard
somewhere near there where they
forgot part of the decalogue a few
hours after attending Pine Street
church services. That it is Bellevue
park and one of the most pleasant
sections may serve to bring this
-ifune- a. bit. Not long ago a"rati1er
active businessman who was look
ing over layout of the city in City
Engineer Cowden's den figured out
that certain street corner was
right in the middle of the Calder
farm and that it is now Cloverly
Heights.
Some of the biggest magazines in
the country carry advertisements of
indispensable office appliances made
in Harrisburg and l casually men
toned the address given as the office
to friend last evening and he in
formed me that there was no such
street. But there is. physically and
officially, and what is more there is
a plant which is a great asset to
Harrisburg and as fit a subject for
local pride as Harrisburg engines,
boiler plates, book binding machin-
cry or any of the other things which
we have been making here for years
and which sent our fame around
the world before the Columbian
Exposition. People are just COM
mencing to refer to Schuylkill,
wiconisco, Mahantongo and other
streets in the upper part of the
Tenth ward the way they did some
twenty or more years ago when the
downtowner used to ask where Camp
street came in and what was the
idea of cutting u street through a
farm and calling 1t Seneca. They
are gradually. getting out of their
heads that Pentwater is not the
name of trolley park but of a
highway that will be lined with
homes some day before long. Pax
tang avenue brings up the thought
of one of the most charming resi-
dental sections with plenty of shade.
a wide roadway and handsome
homes instead of the idea of a merry
go round. Some people would be
surprised to know that Royal Ter
race Is built up instead OF tackled up
on the side of real estate office
and that darkest Sibletown is now
Balkan community and already
giving signs of a change. Rely
and the other uptown streets have
nmped the railroads and cleared
paxton creek and are getting ready
IN scale the bluff where we almost
got a college for Harrisburg about
two decades ago. Things are going
IN move around this city when the
Drummer plans start WORKING ana
there will be new list OF develop.
ers who will take up the WORK, OF
Ren- Engle, Gus Wildman, Baughman'
Giryin Grove, young Joe Shearer'
Gettys. Alec Miller, Shirk, Strohm'
chris Long, and the other builders
who added many an attractive house
fo Harrisburg and turned vacant lots
into telephone numbers.
The moral of this lecture Is that
there may be pleasant days coming
this month after all and Sunday
: "a 4.,,,oor walk is n nightly aid in