Excerpts and summaries of news stories from the former Intelligencer Journal, Lancaster New Era and Sunday News that focus on the events in the county’s past that are noteworthy, newsworthy or just strange.
In 1995, Derrick Burch was hoping to be one in a million.
The Lancaster man, who worked as a monitor at the Crispus Attucks shelter, was helping to organize transportation for local men who wanted to participate in the Million Man March, an nationwide gathering of Black men planned for Oct. 16, 1995, in Washington, D.C.
Burch said at least 200 men from Lancaster County were planning on traveling to the march, which was intended to draw Black men together to focus on “atonement, reconciliation and responsibility.”
Lancaster County men were planning to travel to the march by buses, vans and cars.
Actual attendance at the march is not known, but estimates ranged from 400,000 to more than 800,000 people.
In the headlines:
O.J. speaks tonight
GOP considers making tax credit for children temporary
Bosnia truce delayed again as army advances
Check out the Oct. 11, 1995, New Era here.
The Lancaster Square complex, the urban renewal project that occupied the entire 100 block of North Queen Street, was taking another step toward completion in October 1970.
The Eric theater, a 1,000-seat movie house located on the second floor of the Lancaster Square building adjacent to the Hilton hotel, was ready to open its doors.
Despite doubts about whether the escalators would be operational by opening night on Oct. 14, the cinema was preparing to show its first feature – a reissue of the “family friendly” 1963 comedy “It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World.”
In the headlines:
Arabs won’t renew cease-fire unless Israel talks peace
Task force favors legalized abortions
Baltimore wins series opener, 4-3
Check out the Oct. 11, 1970, Sunday News here.
A Lancaster County man was the victim of a horrific traffic accident that was front-page news in October 1945.
Ellis Landis, 27, had stopped along Route 896 south of Strasburg to change a fly tire on his car around 10 p.m. on Oct. 10. As he was working on the car, a passing truck hit him, knocking him out into he center of the roadway, where he was subsequently run over by a car.
His wife, Alta, was attempting to pull him off the roadway when the car struck him.
Landis was reported to be conscious at Lancaster General Hospital, were he was being treated for skull fractures, broken legs and multiple deep lacerations.
Police were searching for the driver of the car that ran him over. The driver of the truck stopped and attempted to help at the scene.
In the headlines:
Chinese parties reported agreed
Tattered American flag flies over Japan
Coal parley still short of agreement to end strikes
Check out the Oct. 11, 1945, Intelligencer Journal here.
“What’s the matter with kids today” has been a perennial question, it seems.
In 1920, the Rev. John Bradbury, pastor of Lancaster’s Olivet Baptist Church, said the problem with youth was, at least in part, a result of going to the movies.
Speaking at a large “rally day” event, the pastor warned of a future in which “we are in danger of having our homes bossed by the children.”
Parents are the only ones ultimately responsible for their children’s moral upbringing, he said, and one place that should be avoided is the movie house.
Any place “that permits to be flashed on the screen stories that make heroes out of traitors, gunmen and libertines, should be shunned as the plague,” he said.
In the headlines:
Poles and Soviets to sign armistice agreement tonight
Pasquale admits kidnaping and smothering Coughlin baby in confession to state police
Check out the Oct. 11, 1920, Lancaster Intelligencer here.