James Curtis Booth, a pioneering American chemist and first U.S. Mint refiner, formed a notable friendship with Pennsylvania’s prominent Coleman family during an 1843 summer stay at their Elizabeth Furnace estate.
History
Posted inHistory
Lebanon County’s northern tier was once a hotel haven for road-weary travelers
Northern Lebanon County was home to numerous hotels, motels, and tourist homes in the 1900s, and were said to have been visited by celebrities.
Posted inHistory
Lebanon HS graduate remembered as popular singer in the 1950s and ’60s
Despite humble beginnings performing at the Fort Indiantown Gap Military Reservation, Jackie Christoff Jankowski — stage name Lynn Christie — found success as a singer, performing in Japan, Buenos Aires, Canada, and throughout the United States during the ’50s and ’60s.
Posted inHistory
Lebanon Valley College’s first Black graduate made campus history in 1902
In 1898, Alfred Charles Sumner traveled from his home of Sierra Leone to Lebanon, Pennsylvania to enroll in Lebanon Valley College (LVC). He would soon become the first Black graduate of the college.
Posted inHistory
The ghost signs of Lebanon city
Lebanon houses many “ghost signs” advertising businesses that are no longer in existence.
Posted inHistory
Pennsylvania’s 133-year-old Chautauqua brings the movement’s ‘four pillars’
The Chautauqua movement started in New York in 1874 and traveled to Lebanon County is 1892, when the Pennsylvania Chautauqua started in Mount Gretna.
Posted inHistory
Who Knew? Unsung Coleman benevolence
A newly uncovered letter reveals Lebanon industrialist G. Dawson Coleman’s generous response to Mary Todd Lincoln’s financial struggles following her husband’s death, though historical records suggest she may not have been as destitute as portrayed.
Posted inHistory
Reminders of Mt. Gretna’s past as home to PANG are still visible to those who look
Hidden remnants of Pennsylvania National Guard’s former Mount Gretna encampment, including combat trenches and concrete foundations, continue to intrigue historians and explorers in Lebanon County’s state game lands.
Posted inHistory
Not unheard of: The story of Lebanon tailor Walter Vincent Tobias
Walter Vincent Tobias, a deaf tailor who helped establish Lebanon’s first deaf community organizations in the 1890s, was a pioneering athlete who played football and baseball before becoming a respected craftsman in early 20th-century Lebanon.
Posted inHistory
Who Knew? “Bird” or “Burd”?
The naming of Cornwall Borough’s Bird Coleman Furnaces evolved from honoring Thomas Bird Coleman to being commonly spelled “Burd Coleman” after Bethlehem Steel’s acquisition in the early 1900s.
Posted inHistory
How a Lebanon-Paris romance created one of France’s finest châteaux, Villandry
A Lebanon heiress’s 1899 marriage to a Spanish doctor led to the restoration of France’s Château de Villandry and its world-renowned gardens, which now attract 350,000 visitors annually.
Posted inHistory
Natural solution to Lebanon’s 1970s waste crisis became a success story
In the 1970s, the Greater Lebanon Refuse Authority came up with a unique way to treat the liquids produced when trash decomposes–a system of lagoons and ponds planted with cattails, bulrushes and lily pads.
Posted inHistory
Who Knew? Anne Caroline Coleman, preserved in verse
Historical documents found at Elizabeth Furnace reveal a brother’s poetic tribute to Anne Caroline Coleman, whose death has long been linked to her broken engagement with James Buchanan.
Posted inHistory
Historic World War II newsletter bound community and troops in Campbelltown
The Old Barn Rifle Club’s Semi-Monthly News Letter, produced by volunteers in a makeshift newsroom, served as a vital link between World War II service members and their community in South Londonderry Township.
Posted inHistory
Highlights from Old Barn Rifle Club’s WWII era Semi-Monthly News Letter
LebTown has published selected highlights from two volumes of a recently digitized World War II community newsletter.
