USA > Pennsylvania > Lycoming County > Picture of Lycoming County, Vol. 2 > Part 6
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for persons with vocational disabilities; the workshop trains such persons how to function in the competitive job market. If a trainee is not deemed prepared for an outside job after completing the program, a sheltered employment position is provided in the Hope Enterprises production workshop in the Industrial Park. Many local industries contract with the production workshop for light industry jobs, from packaging to soldering. In this way, both handicapped persons and lo- cal businesses benefit from the program.
Residential Services is another of Hope Enterprises pro- grams and is aimed at teaching handicapped individuals how to live independently. Participants in residential services live in one of three situations: a foster home, a group home, or an apartment alone. In each case, the teaching of skills for successful social life is the goal. Thus, Hope Enterprises satisfies a valuable educa- tional service for people with special needs which the public schools are not equipped to provide. For this reason many of Hope Enterprises' programs are utilized by social service arms of state and local government.
LYCOMING COLLEGE
For a county of its size, Lycoming County is well blessed with institutions of higher learning. Both Lycoming Col- lege and the Williamsport Area Community College contri- bute handsomely to the academic, cultural and economic attributes of the county. Together, the two colleges pro- vide Williamsport and Lycoming County with well-rounded op- tions for either the academically minded or vocationally minded student. Lycoming College is a four-year liberal arts college offering majors in most subjects from the arts and sciences. It is a private school associated with the United Methodist Church ( formerly Methodist ) since 1848. Prior to 1947 Lycoming College was a two-year preparatory college operating under the name of Dickinson Junior College. The president of the college then was Dr. John W. Long, who held office more than a quarter century, from 1921 to 1955. Had it not been for his drive and foresight, Lycoming College might never have become a reality.
Before Dickinson Junior College was to advance to a four- year status, it had a role to play in World War II. After the bombing of Pearl Harbor, the Junior College established an army education unit. In 1942 there were 110 young men enrolled in the Civil Pilot Training Cadet course at the college. By 1943 all available dormitory space at the college was occupied by 349 army aviation cadets and of- ficers. By 1944 the college had trained a detachment of 910 air crew students and 59 students in the United States Cadet Nurse Corps. The nursing program was offered in con- junction with the Williamsport Hospital Nursing School.
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With the end of World War II, Dickinson Junior College ap- plied for status as a four-year college; it received approval from the Pennsylvania State Council of Education in May, 1947. In anticipation of this event, the college initiated a fund raising campaign in January, 1947, which a year later had raised $435,633 from the local community. The name of the new college was a source of some debate by the board of directors, but in October, 1947, the board finally settled on "Lycoming College" after rejecting such names as The University of Williamsport and Northern Methodist University.
By 1950 Lycoming College had achieved accreditation status from the University Senate of the Methodist Church and from the Middle States Association of Colleges and Secondary Schools; accreditation was given in view of the college's plans to construct a new library and to hire more faculty members with doctorates.
Upon achieving four-year status, the college embarked upon a building and expansion program which was to last nearly twenty years. In November of 1948 a new women's dormitory was dedicated, followed by the new library in 1951. Then between 1955 and 1968 seven new dormitories were built, crowned by the Academic Center, completed in 1966. This impressive complex includes a well-equipped library, class- rooms, faculty offices, the Arena Theater, a planetarium, psychology labs, a computer center, several student lounges, and an auditorium.
After about 1955 Lycoming College drew more of its students from outside the county than from inside it. Geographically, Lycoming College benefits from a location accessible to all sections of the Northeastern United States. The college has long played a major role in educating ministers for the United Methodist Church, and in 1952, was certified to train teachers in secondary education; soon thereafter, training in elementary education was added. Today, with a student body numbering 1200, Lycoming College offers a wide variety of courses, many of them in preparation for profes- sional schools. The location, physical plant, and academic offerings of the college make it an attractive choice for many college-bound students.
THE WILLIAMSPORT AREA COMMUNITY COLLEGE
Lycoming County's other college is the Williamsport Area Community College, a two-year institution offering associ- ate degrees and certificates primarily in vocational tech- nical fields. The history of the Community College, or WACC as it is known, is really the history of several schools, beginning as far back as 1914 when the William- sport High School opened a small industrial arts shop. After World War I a full-time adult day school was opened
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by WHS to provide retraining for veterans -- many of them dis- abled -- in industrial skills. The program also included an evening industrial school for non-veterans. Other adult education programs carried on in the 1920's by the high school were a program to train foremen for local industry and a work-study program in industrial subjects for students over sixteen.
THE "WILLIAMSPORT PLAN"
During the Great Depression, the high school, local indus- tries and commercial groups sponsored a program called "The Williamsport Plan" ( see chapter 2). The purpose of the Williamsport Plan was to retrain workers left jobless by the economic crisis. At the time, Lycoming County experi- enced an unemployment rate of twenty-five percent. The Williamsport Plan was so successful at retraining workers for the skilled positions opening up in area plants, that it won national recognition. It was praised as a creative and responsible way for a community to deal with the prob- lems of unemployment on its own initiative. The high school adult training program provided the necessary in- struction from 6 PM to 10 PM so that trainees could pursue whatever employment they could find during the day.
The Williamsport Plan eventually made training available to other persons at the technical school through federal govern- ment programs, such as the Civilian Conservation Corps and the National Youth Administration. The NYA brought high school age boys to Williamsport from throughout Pennsylva- nia for technical training at the high school shops on Susquehanna Street. Each boy stayed in the program for a year, which consisted of eighty hours of training alter- nating with eighty hours of work. While at work the boys repaired and reconditioned machines for the government and military. The Center was able to train 100 boys at a time and helped many get a start in life when they needed it most.
In 1940, with America's involvement in World War II just around the corner, the Williamsport School Board established a special Emergency Training Commission to undertake the training of men and women for defense work. The William- sport vocational operation at the high school became one of the first in the country to begin a defense training pro- gram. The school operated on a twenty-four hour a day schedule.
THE WILLIAMSPORT TECHNICAL INSTITUTE
By 1941 the technical wing of the high school had become so large and diverse that the School District voted to turn it into a technical institute separate from the high school.
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The Williamsport Technical Institute, or "Tech," remained under the control of the city school board but had its own director and educational program. The Tech continued to provide vocational training to both adults and secondary students. The first director of WTI was Dr. George Parkes, who became superintendent of Williamsport Schools in 1952. At the close of World War II, the Tech trained returning veterans under the G. I. Bill. One Tech program of which many G. I. 's took advantage was the new agricultural pro- gram set up on the Brock Farm near Muncy.
In 1945 the so-called "Watsontown Plan" was implemented which, for the first time, brought high school students to Tech from a school district other than Williamsport. The Watsontown Plan served, in effect, as the forerunner to other technical schools which have spread throughout Penn- sylvania. In 1950 the state legislature enacted a law pro- viding transportation for high school students to vocational training centers. The WTI served as the training center for Lycoming County and vicinity. The Williamsport Area Community College continues to serve this function for area schools. In just a little over ten years the Technical Institute had achieved such prestige that official approval was granted the institute to train foreign students, and a group of educators from Panama came to the Tech for instruc- tion in how to develop similar schools in their own country.
WACC FOUNDED
The passage in the state legislature of the 1963 Community College Act spelled bigger and better things for the Tech. After a feasibility study concluded that a community college in Williamsport was both desirable and possible, five area school districts cooperated to create WACC out of the Technical Institute. On February 11, 1965, the Pennsylvania Board of Education approved formation of the college; its doors opened for classes September 7, 1965, under the same roof as the former Tech. WACC now has a total of twenty sponsoring school districts from nine counties. Students in college courses from these twenty districts receive a two-thirds tuition subsidy -- one-third from their own school district and one-third from the state.
Besides offering full-time college-level courses in both vo- cational technical fields and the liberal arts, WACC offers continuing education courses for adults in areas from car- pentry to cake decorating. The adult evening courses are a very popular aspect of WACC's offerings as attested by the current enrollment of 4,000 persons. In its full-time college section WACC has a total of 3,250 students. While ninety-five percent of WACC's college students are enrolled in vocational technical fields, it is not uncommon for a WACC graduate to continue on to a four-year college to
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finish a bachelor's degree. Eighty-six percent of WACC's students who do not go on for higher degrees are placed in jobs upon graduation.
WACC's service to the community extends beyond its doors. Recently, programs have been introduced in such areas as dental technology, food services management, computer pro- gramming, and general studies for inmates at the Lewisburg Federal Penitentiary. The college also has engaged in re- training members of the government's Manpower Training and Comprehensive Employment Training Act programs; has provided apprenticeship training for a number of local la- bor unions; and has made available in-plant training in such industries as Hammermill, Piper Aircraft, Tetley Tea, Sprout-Waldron/Koppers, and GTE Sylvania. Industries often reciprocate by providing WACC with grants and equipment.
The control of WACC passed at its founding from the William- sport Area School Board to a fifteen-member board of trust- ees. The board is responsible for electing the college president, the first of whom was Dr. Kenneth Carl, who was also the last director of WTI. The board of trustees is elected by an executive council which consists of one member chosen by each of the school boards of the sponsoring districts. The sponsoring districts must, in turn, support the college financially, the amount of which is determined by a formula based upon the total value of real estate in each school district. The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania also provides one-half of the capital costs for running WACC.
Besides providing low-cost education, WACC enhances the in- dustrial and economic capacity of Lycoming County by making available a skilled body of trained workers for industries located here. Thus, what Lycoming College is to the liberal arts, the Williamsport Area Community College is to the vo- cational arts. Lycoming County covets both colleges as major contributors to its cultural and economic well-being.
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QUESTIONS CHAPTER 6
1. What new courses and facilities have been included in the secondary schools since 1940?
2. How has the administration of the schools changed?
3. What were the advantages of the 1947 Act? Why were there many objections?
4. What changes did the 1961 reorganization make in Ly- coming County?
5. Explain the work of Intermediate Unit 17 ( BLaST).
6. What alternatives to public education have developed in Lycoming County?
7. What changes have taken place in Lycoming County re- garding education beyond high school since the 1930's?
8. Describe the "Williamsport Plan"?
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Chapter 7
THE NEWS MEDIA
NEWSPAPERS, RADIO, AND TELEVISION
Lycoming County is currently informed by one daily news- paper, the Williamsport Sun-Gazette, and three weeklies -- Grit, Citizen Press, and the Muncy Luminary. The William- - sport Sun-Gazette became the fifth oldest newspaper in the state as a result of a 1955 consolidation of the William- sport Gazette and Bulletin and the fifth oldest paper, the Williamsport Sun. By 1977 the Sun-Gazette's daily circu- lation had reached 35,100 copies.
Grit, America's oldest independent family newspaper, is a Sunday weekly which circulated 39,837 copies locally and over one million copies nationally in 1977. In that same year, the Muncy Luminary circulated over 2,400 copies weekly, and the four-year-old Citizen Press had reached 9,000 weekly copies. Citizen Press is the first news- paper started in Williamsport since 1955 when the now- folded Williamsport Examiner began publication. The Ex- aminer lasted only one year.
In 1961 the weekly Montoursville Monitor ceased publication after six years. The Hughesville Mail Weekly ceased pub- lication in 1945. In 1960, the Jersey Shore Herald became the Evening News and was bought by the Lock Haven Express in 1961. The Greater Williamsport Shopper's Guide, though supported totally by advertisements, was a widely read newspaper which often printed in-depth news reports untouched by other area newspapers. The paper was published from 1922 to 1956, changing its name to the Lycoming Shopper's Guide in 1953 when it changed ownership.
Five radio stations broadcast in Lycoming County. WRAK, an NBC affiliate, began broadcasting in 1934. It was followed by WWPA (CBS) in 1949, WLYC-AM in 1950 and WMPT AM-FM (ABC) in 1958. WILQ (UPI audio) co-owned with WLYC, began broad- casting in 1973. Only one television station has origina- ted from Williamsport. Since 1963, WDW-TV has telecast lo- cal programs periodically to subscribers of the Citizen's Cable Company, its owner.
IMPROVED METHODS OF PRINTING
In the last decade, printing methods have changed dramati- cally from manual production to the use of electronic equip- ment. The Sun-Gazette switched its printing method from hot type to cold type in 1968 when the method was revolutionary. Grit followed in 1975. Under the hot type method, a re- - porter typed a story on paper and sent it to an editor who made corrections in pencil and wrote type-setting instruc- tions on the paper. It was then sent to the composing room
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Williamsport Sun-Gazette Building
GRI
GRIT
Grit Building
where it was again typed, set by linotype, and printed by a hot-lead letter press on flat-bed sheets weighing 53 pounds.
Under the modern cold type method, a reporter types on a special paper called optical scanner paper, which when fed into the optical character reader, enables the reporter to edit, rewrite, and set instructions electronically as he views the copy on a screen. The copy is stored in a com- puter until the editor "calls it up" on a video display terminal (VDT) which also displays the story on a screen. The editor makes corrections and gives type-set instructions by typing on the VDT and then sends the finished story electronically to typesetters in the composing room where it is set at a rate of 1,000 lines per minute. Ready for the presses, the story never needs to be typed a second time. Many steps are eliminated under the cold type system, thus freeing manpower to do more in-depth coverage of the news.
Having done away with the 53-pound letter press used in the hot type system, the cold type method employs the camera to photograph pages which are reproduced onto aluminum sheets weighing only twelve ounces. The pliable aluminum sheets are wound around a rotary press which enables twice as many sheets to be laid out simultaneously and run off at twice the speed. The cold type method has enabled the presses to double the number of sheets run off to as many as 60,000 per hour.
Under the hot type method the camera was used only to copy photographs. The cold type method employs the camera to photograph not only pictures but also sheets of print. The more sophisticated camera also permits improved quality of spot and color reproduction.
The Sun-Gazette printing plant adjoining the offices is on West Fourth Street. Grit's newspaper press facilities are on Maynard Street. Grit also has a complete commercial printing facility at the West Third Street plant.
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QUESTIONS CHAPTER 7
1. List newspapers and radio stations that have served the county .
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Chapter 8
TRANSPORTATION: EXIT RAILROADS -- ENTER HIGHWAYS AND AIRPLANES
RAILROADS
Alternative transportation has taken a tremendous toll on the railroads in the county, forcing a cutback of manpower and services. At one time the railroad roundhouse at Wal- nut Street along Erie Avenue was the site of a large turn- table on which engines were pivoted to reverse their direc- tion. Engines stopped there to be stoked and the whining and whistles of the trains was constant. The only reminder of the roundhouse today is the name still attached to the site and the dogleg that it created in Erie Avenue as it made its way around the yard. Trinity Place, the once bustling passenger station, now stands idle along the tracks.
At Newberry Junction, passengers once rushed to board trains and men on loading docks loaded merchandise to be shipped. Newberry Junction was once the most active railroad center in the county. In the 1940's the name of Newberry Junction was more familiar to railroaders than Williamsport. It was the site of engine houses which monthly repaired 1,800 en- gines and up to 3,000 freight cars. There were pens with cowboys, a refrigeration station, an ice house, passenger stations and freight transfers. As many as 200,000 freight cars interchanged on more than 40 miles of track at New- berry Junction. Hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of merchandise were handled daily, much of it in raw materials or finished products bound for Cleveland, Cincinnati, Chi- cago, Detroit, St. Louis, Louisville, or the West.
Four railroads operated out of Williamsport in 1940: the Pennsylvania Railroad, the Reading Company, the New York Central Railroad, and the Susquehanna and New York. Erie Railroad also had a connection here. Passengers could board the Pennsylvania Railroad trains at Trinity and Nichols Places, and at Pine Street. Reading trains could be boarded at Front Street where the Susquehanna and New York Railroad also maintained a station. By 1970, only the Penn Central Station at Trinity and Nichols Places boarded passengers and Newberry Junction handled only half its volume of 600 cars a day.
THE RAILROADS DECLINE
In 1940, railroad officials predicted that railroad traffic was not likely to diminish as long as manufacturers and businesses shipped by rail; however, improved highway net- works as well as bus and truck competition reduced passenger and freight traffic by 1945. In that year two passenger trains were ordered discontinued in order to accommodate troops returning to the eastern seaboard. Two more trains were discontinued in 1950, ending passenger service from
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Shamokin to Williamsport. Battles were waged in the 50's and 60's between communities and railroads concerning passenger service. Railroads claimed a gradual decline in the use of passenger services since the 1930's.
Battles raged during the 50's after the Pennsylvania Rail- road petitioned the Public Utilities Commission (PUC) to allow it to discontinue the three Susquehannocks which pro- vided seven-day-a-week connections between Williamsport, Philadelphia, and New York. The trains were expensive, equipped with sleeping cars, air conditioned reclining seat coaches, and parlor-dinner-lounge cars. In 1960, the trains were discontinued after lengthy battles between railroads and communities and numerous hearings between the railroads, the PUC and the ICC ( Interstate Commerce Commission).
In 1967, the southbound Baltimore Day Express and the north- bound Buffalo Day Express were dropped by the Pennsylvania Railroad. In 1969, in order to increase use, the ICC al- lowed the now merged Penn Central (Pennsylvania Railroad and New York Central) to change night runs to daytime runs and to alternate services northbound one day and southbound the next. Passenger use out of Williamsport averaged only 2.2 persons.
The railroads argued that prior to 1958, freight service revenues had helped to support passenger services; however, after the opening of the St. Lawrence Seaway and the Robert Moses Hydroelectric Plant, revenues lost to the seaway in coal and grain shipping cut deeply into profits. Further losses of revenues resulted when Eastern steel mills shifted their source of iron from the Great Lakes and did not need to ship by rail through Williamsport. The combined losses in freight revenues no longer supported declining passenger services.
END OF RAIL PASSENGER SERVICE
In 1971, the controversy that spanned decades ended when Penn Central joined RailPax (National Railroad Passenger Corporation -- now Amtrak), the national, quasi-governmental agency established by Congress. Railpax sought to combine passenger services into a nationwide network connecting all major points. Since Williamsport was not on the Railpax schedule, passenger service here was dropped. On April 30, 1971, the last passenger train left Williamsport amid hun- dreds of sorrowful romanticists. Today only freight is shipped in the county by Conrail (Consolidated Rail Corpora- tion ).
HIGHWAYS
When it comes to travel, the car is king, as anyone who
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TI
Switching tracks at Newberry Yard
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Engine at Newberry Yard
Construction on Montgomery Pike, 1940
Susquehanna Beltway at U. S. Route 15
observes one of Lycoming County's major roads can attest. The increase in gasoline prices and the reality of the energy crisis has not greatly affected the popularity of the car. The automobile probably ranks with television and the tele- phone as the most significant influence upon American cul- ture in the last 50 years. One need only to study the development of highways and car use in Lycoming County to determine how the rest of the country has been affected by them.
Lycoming County is criss-crossed by roads and expressways which were not even thought of in 1940. In those days travel between places within the county could take several hours. There were no four-lane highways. Most of the major routes passed through towns like Jersey Shore, Montoursville or Muncy, which today are by-passed altogether. Until the 1960's Route 220 was two lanes of often slow-moving traffic. Today it is freeway much of its length. The same is true for Route 15. These changes, in themselves, are witness to the important growth of the gasoline engine as the primary means of transportation today. One very important highway which had its beginning in Lycoming County and contributes to the economic well being of the region does not even pass through the county. It is Interstate 80, known as the Keystone Shortway in its earlier days.
INFLUENCE OF CARS AND TRUCKS
The influence of the car and truck upon our county has proved both good and bad. They have made our population more mobile than ever before. People travel distances by car today they would not have attempted in the 1940's or 1950's as a casual drive. The improved highways have made our county more accessible to other areas of the state and country. This is an attraction to industries wishing to situate in an area centrally located to most major urban areas in the northeastern United States. Further, the new roads have greatly improved local travel. A trip from Jersey Shore to downtown Williamsport is reduced from 45 minutes to 20 minutes. And seemingly endless lines of traf- fic by-pass many towns in the county. Soon, Williamsport will be spared roaring trucks and congested traffic with the completion of the Susquehanna Beltway project.
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