Have you ever been to...?

[Big Joe]

In my travels I frequently find myself in small towns with ties to the golden era. Here's one I was in this week: Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania.

Wilkes Barre native Ham Fisher created the popular "Joe Palooka" comic strip.Benjamin Franklin Mahoney, born in Wilkes Barre in 1901 built Charles Lindbergh's "Spirit of St. Louis." Famous Hollywood directors, producers and screenwriters Herman and Joseph Mankiewicz spent their early years in Wilkes Barre. The city's name is often mentioned in their films. Amadeo Obici started a fruit and peanut stand at 15 E. Market St. in 1906 which grew to become Planters' Peanuts, the largest peanut manufacturer in the world. The area has the largest deposits of anthracite coal in the world and for some 100 years supplied the nation with one of its most important sources of energy.

How about you? Been to any small towns with deep roots?

Big Joe

 

[Jack Scorpion]

Sure, Cooperstown, NY. I won't say why.

 

[shamus]

why do I feel like I'm listening to an episode of "What do you know?"

 

[binkmeisterRick]

I've been to Wilkes-Barre a number of times! In fact, we have a family reunion on my father's side there every number of years. There's a small crossroads call Mossville not too far off from there where the family has a graveyard plot with ancestors who go back to the times of settlement. In fact, I have an ancestor burried there who was a Union soldier in the Civil War and died from wounds at the Battle of Gettysburg. (I've seen the letters his brother wrote back home, telling everyone of his last days as he took care of him before he died. The wound details were pretty graphic, too.)

I've been through a lot of little towns throughout Virginia, Maryland, Indiana, Ohio, Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, and elsewhere which have a lot of roots. I think the best way to get a true sense of America is to drive through it, taking the off roads when you can.

bink

 

[Pilgrim]

After watching The Quiet Man last weekend, I was ready for the next word after the thread title to be:

.....Innisfree?

And my dad was born in Pennsylvania in 1919, in a small town south of Pittsburgh named Helltown. Unfortunately, it no longer exists (I believe it was near Irwin) and I've never visited.

 

[Nathan Flowers]

why do I feel like I'm listening to an episode of "What do you know?"

It's our Town of the Week, don't you know?

 

[binkmeisterRick]

You guys are making me hungry for Bocca Burgers. :hamburger

 

[Lincsong]

DeKalb, Il

60 miles west of Chicago. Home of the Wurlizter Plant and where barbed wire was invented. Travel 40 miles west and there's Dixon, the boyhood home of the GREAT RONALD WILSON REAGAN!:eusa_clap :eusa_clap :eusa_clap Go, southwest and there's Tampico, Il, Reagan's birthplace. Go into Iowa and you can find the boyhood home of Marion Morrison, aka John Wayne. I forgot the name of the town though.

 

[Mr_Misanthropy]

Well..

I live in Hannibal, Missouri. Mark Twain spent his adolescent life here and his books about Tom Sawyer, Huck Finn, etc. are based here. Much of the downtown area is exactly as it was a hundred years ago, except old buildings now house new shops... but with respect to the historical value of the town. We have a riverboat that goes up and down the Mississippi, more Mark Twain statues than I can count, and tons of tourist stuff.

I have also been to Wilkes-Barre, I had fun. I remember also passing through Bloomington, Illinois and thinking that town was stuck in the 1950's.

 

[binkmeisterRick]

How could I forget?! Having lived in Fort Wayne, Indiana, where Carole Lombard had a home. In fact, it's called the Carol Lombard House, has been turned into a classy B&B and was only a couple blocks from where I lived. On the side of Fiction, Fort Wayne is where Frank Burns from M*A*S*H was from, as well as Mr. Heston's character from Planet of the Apes.

 

[Lincsong]

Colma California

The final resting place for over 1 million people and the home of 1200 living souls. Wyatt Earp is buried at the Eternal Hills/Salem Park Jewish Cemetary. There is also Italian Cemetary, Serbian Cemetary, Chinese Cemetary, Holy Cross Roman Catholic Cemetary, Woodlawn Masonic Cemetary and a host of others I can't remember and the Pets Rest Animal Cemetary. And the Lucky Chances Casino. (Figure that one out)