Wednesday Sep 21st, 2022
John Nolen was hired in 1913 to improve the city of Erie for a prosperous future and begins his recommendations by telling us what we did right. His first topic were the streets.
Friday Sep 16th, 2022
Theodore Maximilian Nagle, namesake of the Nagle Engine and Boiler Works of Erie, Pennsylvania, was born in Germany in 1840. In 1923, he penned a short book entitled Reminiscences of The Civil War. The book is a detailed account of Nagle’s regiment, the 21st New York Volunteers in the Civil War. In 1914, Nagle also penned a small booklet or pamphlet detailing the regiment’s role in the disastrous Battle of Fredericksburg, Virginia in December, 1862.
Wednesday Sep 14th, 2022
As I continue this series on all things that make for living a long and happy life in Erie County, I have stumbled across a book that I have been wanting to read for many years. Although the title may scare away a casual reader of local history, I am sure that readers of this blog will find the contents fascinating. It is called “Plans and Reports for the Extension and Improvement of the City” written in 1913 by City Planner John Nolen (1869-1937). I mentioned Mr. Nolan in Blog #94 on GE and Lawrence Park. I have read that he was the first American to identify himself as a “city planner” and studied landscape architecture under Frederick Law Olmsted Jr. (who designed New York City’s Central Park among other places). Nolan consulted on plans for more than 25 cities in the country and Erie was one of them.
Friday Sep 9th, 2022
Little is known about the Native American tribe that gave its name to Erie, Lake Erie and a county in three states. They were gone when the first settlers of European descent arrived in the region. What happened to the Erie or Eriez tribe?
Wednesday Sep 7th, 2022
The first thing I do when I walk into my office each morning is turn on the lights. I don’t care if a little sunlight is coming through my small window or not, I mindlessly turn them on and go about my day. Today though, I thought about Thomas Edison and his connection to Erie when I turned on my lights and then did a little research.
Wednesday Aug 31st, 2022
In 1915, Carl Benz was a German-American who, although having formally declared his citizenship intentions, was still years from becoming a U.S. citizen. He was gainfully employed as a butcher at Haibach Brothers Meat Packers at 918 Parade Street in Erie. Then suddenly, the U.S. declaration of war against Germany had flipped the climate in the U.S. against immigrant Germans (and even resident German-Americans). The mood changed from welcoming to skepticism, then outright persecution.
Wednesday Aug 24th, 2022
Carl Benz was an Erie man, an immigrant, a butcher, a business-owner, a family man, and my grandfather. He was born in 1888 in Offenburg, Baden, Germany along the western edge of the Black Forest, just six miles from the Rhine River (which was the sometimes-border between France and Germany). He was the baby of the family with three older sisters.
Wednesday Aug 17th, 2022
Every now and then, the author of this blog gets out to enjoy the surrounding beauty of our area. I took a drive to Conneaut township, Ohio, recently and remembered that there were several covered bridges in the area to be admired. Well, I had the wrong car for the job because my low-profile tires do not like dirt roads (my last experience ended with a tow truck ride!) but I found two of the four bridges anyhow and checked them out.
Wednesday Aug 10th, 2022
Where am I? The land for this community was part of the Erie “Triangle” which was 315 square miles claimed by New York, Connecticut, and Massachusetts at the same time. In 1778, the Commonwealth (the Merriam-Webster Dictionary defines a state and a commonwealth as the same thing with the only difference being in the name) of Pennsylvania and the Federal Government signed a treaty with 24 Iroquois Chiefs and was purchased for $165,640.00 ($3,508,399.23 today).
Friday Aug 5th, 2022
Many readers have seen the 1998 World War II film Saving Private Ryan. A small group of Army Rangers is sent behind German lines in post-D-Day France to find Private James Ryan whose brothers have been killed in the war. The story is loosely based on the story of the Niland brothers of Tonawanda, New York.
Our Hours:
Erie campus:
Monday: CLOSED
Tuesday: 10 am - 5 pm
Wednesday: 10 am - 5 pm
Thursday: 10 am - 5 pm
Friday: 10 am - 5 pm
Saturday: 10 am - 5 pm
Sunday: 12 pm - 5 pm
*****Girard campus is open for special events only
