Apples Church Celebrates Its Centennial a Second Time by James Rada, Jr. On April 13, 1932, a child was baptized at Apples Church in Thurmont. On the surface, it doesn’t seem unusual. More than one person was baptized at the church each year, and some of them were children. However, April 13 was the centennial…

A Woman’s Curse on Site R Although construction of Site R under Raven Rock Mountain used advanced construction techniques to protect the lives of essential members of the federal government, it couldn’t avoid the superstitions of the men who built it and the lives those superstitions cost. In 1951, when Dennis Koontz was a young…

The American Legion Grows Its Presence in Emmitsburg It took years, but the American Legion building finally got a facelift to its permanent home in 1950. The Francis X. Elder Post No. 121, on North Seton Avenue in Emmitsburg underwent two months of renovations. It reopened to its members on July 29, 1950. “The Post,…

By James Rada, Jr. Jet Crashes East of Emmitsburg Dr. W.R. Cadle was outside on the evening of August 30, 1950. A storm had come in, and he was heading to his front door to get out of the rain. Around 9:00 p.m., he saw a red flash in the sky, and then a few…

By James Rada, Jr. The Towns That Would Be D.C. The first U.S. Congress, which met in 1789, had a lot of decisions to make. It set the benchmarks that other Congresses would be measured against. Each representative and senator also wanted to see federal money spent in their districts. One prize, if not the…

By James Rada, Jr. Don’t Mess with Circus Folk The residents of the Emmitsburg area were a bit leery of a circus coming to town in 1909. Two years earlier, the Robinson Circus had performed in town and left people with a bad taste in their mouths. “Many of our people attended the circus in…

By James Rada, Jr. Train Goes Into Owens Creek at Christmas As Christmas approached in 1966, people were thinking about gifts that needed to be bought for friends and family and plans for how to spend the holidays. Shortly after noon on December 20, a 44-car Western Maryland Railway train traveling from Hagerstown to Baltimore…

By James Rada, Jr. A Wind-Blown Frederick County It could have been an April Fool’s Day joke, albeit a bad one, that Mother Nature played on the region in 1975, except it was a few days late. On April 3, the wind started blowing, and it blew hard. The Frederick Airport measured sustained winds of…

By James Rada, Jr. Famous Inventor Dies in Waynesboro Peter Geiser could have been the patron saint of farmers in Waynesboro, Pennsylvania. He made farmers’ lives easier and brought prosperity to Waynesboro. When Geiser died in 1901, both mourned his passing. “In the home from which he often looked over the town he had done…

Adams County’s Forgotten Centennial by James Rada When Adams County, Pennsylvania, turned 100, no one cared enough to throw a party. While surrounding counties celebrated various anniversaries in the late 19th century, Adams County’s big anniversary—its centennial—went relatively unrecognized and uncelebrated. As Adams County’s centennial approached, a group of public-spirited citizens met in the mid-1890s…

Emmitsburg Goes Dry by James Rada Things were pretty dry in Frederick County in November 1974. Rain hadn’t fallen in weeks, and the county had placed a leaf-burning ban in effect to try to avoid an out-of-control fires. Meanwhile, Emmitsburg town staff watched as the water level at Rainbow Lake continued dropping. When it reached…

by James Rada Colleges Take to the Skies When World War II started in 1939, the United States had roughly 38,000 trained pilots. It wasn’t enough to fight a war. Men were willing to join the Air Corps, but there weren’t enough instructors to train them all. Often, the men waiting to become pilots were…

Hoof and Mouth Disease Hits Local Farm In the fall of 1908, the State of Maryland started killing cattle in Frederick and Carroll counties in an effort to protect residents from falling ill. Hoof and mouth disease first appeared on H. M. Kneller’s farm in Lineboro, where it was reported that his entire herd was…

Speeding Up Snail Mail by James Rada, Jr. Rural Free Delivery came to Frederick County in 1901, a decade after it was first introduced in Westminster in 1891. In that time, it had become popular among those who had it. The Catoctin Clarion noted in 1900, “The rural free delivery grows more unpopular every day,…

An Isolated Town Arrives in the 20th Century Although Catoctin and South mountains aren’t the largest mountains in America or even the Appalachians, their crooks and crannies provided land where isolated communities sprung up. One of these communities was Friends Creek, west of Emmitsburg in Frederick County. “Friends creek dashes musically over its rocky bed,…

Littlestown Man Dies of Fright John McCall of Littlestown, Pennsylvania, was one of the oldest engineers working on the Northern Central Railroad in 1909. He had worked for the railroad for over 30 years and even lost a leg eight years earlier in an accident on the railroad. So, what could a man who had…

The Woodpecker vs. Fort Ritchie Sitting atop South Mountain, Fort Ritchie helped save the world from the Nazis during World War II. However, the camp didn’t fare as well against woodpeckers. Fort Ritchie’s history dates back to 1889 when the Buena Vista Ice Company of Philadelphia purchased 400 acres on South Mountain. The company developed…

Where the White Frogs Frolic In 1932, Charles Clyde (C.C.) Moler was shopping at Lilypons goldfish nurseries in Frederick County when something in the water caught his eye. The water rippled with activity from the thousands of goldfish in the ponds that been drained to a low level for harvesting. C.C. saw flashes of orange…

An Unusual Visit to Thurmont by James Rada, Jr. On June 20, 1923, a young Prince Georges County man had a visit to Thurmont that he didn’t enjoy. W. E. Trego was a salesman for the Isaac A. Sheppard Co. in Baltimore, but he lived in Thurmont. While traveling from Roanoke, Virginia, to Washington, D.C.,…

Area connections to the Star-Spangled Banner by James Rada, Jr. Frederick County native Francis Scott Key was a lawyer, who is not remembered for his legal expertise, but for a poem he wrote. In 1814, the War of 1812 was still raging. Some historians call it the second American Revolution. Less than a generation after…