DISCOVER: HISTORY
Keeping cool on those lazy, hazy days
By DICK SHEARER, Historian
Lansdale Historical Society
Time flies, and it won’t be long before these transitional days of late winter morph into the hot and humid weeks of mid-summer. Today, we can deal with heat as quickly as turning on an air conditioner, but not so back in Lansdale’s earlier years.
Folks who lived in an era before automatic climate control or even electric fans had a greater tolerance for 90-degree temperatures and sky-high humidity. How else could they wear long-sleeve shirts, long-pants and full-length dresses without passing out from the heat?
Even the heartiest among them needed a respite, especially on weekends and steamy evenings when the air felt as heavy as a ton of bricks. For many Lansdalians, relief was less than a mile away. Susquehanna Avenue dead-ended at Whites Road, where an oasis awaited: Edgewood Park.
Edgewood Park was located where Whites Road Park is today, but it bore little resemblance to the present facility. Established by the White family in the 1880s, Edgewood was a community gathering spot beneath a grove of trees that captured the slightest of breezes. It featured a man-made lake suitable for swimming and boating, a picnic grove and pavilions, a carousel, dance hall, refreshment stand and gun club. A baseball diamond was also close by.
While Edgewood Park was extremely popular with local families, its existence was short-lived. The Whites tired of running the park by the late 1890s and closed it down. The land was used as the town dump for a time before it was purchased by the Borough of Lansdale in the 1960s and redeveloped as the park we know today.
Public transportation opened the door to other hot-weather venues: Zieber’s Park, which opened in nearby West Point in the 1860s, offered many of the same amenities found at Edgewood and it could be reached by trolley after 1900. Menlo Park in Perkasie was accessed by train or trolley; it featured a toboggan ride, a band shell and a venue for bowling and roller-skating. Another option was to take the train to Chalfont, where Forest Park awaited.
And of course no summer was complete without a least one trip to Willow Grove Park or Dorney Park in Allentown where many a wedding proposal was offered.
Returning home, reality set in at night. The only relief from a restless, sweat-infused attempt at sleep was to retreat to the front porch when the slightest breeze was greeted with a grateful sigh.
But as you can see all around town today, once air conditioning became a household staple, many of those beautiful porches began disappearing.
Lansdale Historical Society
Time flies, and it won’t be long before these transitional days of late winter morph into the hot and humid weeks of mid-summer. Today, we can deal with heat as quickly as turning on an air conditioner, but not so back in Lansdale’s earlier years.
Folks who lived in an era before automatic climate control or even electric fans had a greater tolerance for 90-degree temperatures and sky-high humidity. How else could they wear long-sleeve shirts, long-pants and full-length dresses without passing out from the heat?
Even the heartiest among them needed a respite, especially on weekends and steamy evenings when the air felt as heavy as a ton of bricks. For many Lansdalians, relief was less than a mile away. Susquehanna Avenue dead-ended at Whites Road, where an oasis awaited: Edgewood Park.
Edgewood Park was located where Whites Road Park is today, but it bore little resemblance to the present facility. Established by the White family in the 1880s, Edgewood was a community gathering spot beneath a grove of trees that captured the slightest of breezes. It featured a man-made lake suitable for swimming and boating, a picnic grove and pavilions, a carousel, dance hall, refreshment stand and gun club. A baseball diamond was also close by.
While Edgewood Park was extremely popular with local families, its existence was short-lived. The Whites tired of running the park by the late 1890s and closed it down. The land was used as the town dump for a time before it was purchased by the Borough of Lansdale in the 1960s and redeveloped as the park we know today.
Public transportation opened the door to other hot-weather venues: Zieber’s Park, which opened in nearby West Point in the 1860s, offered many of the same amenities found at Edgewood and it could be reached by trolley after 1900. Menlo Park in Perkasie was accessed by train or trolley; it featured a toboggan ride, a band shell and a venue for bowling and roller-skating. Another option was to take the train to Chalfont, where Forest Park awaited.
And of course no summer was complete without a least one trip to Willow Grove Park or Dorney Park in Allentown where many a wedding proposal was offered.
Returning home, reality set in at night. The only relief from a restless, sweat-infused attempt at sleep was to retreat to the front porch when the slightest breeze was greeted with a grateful sigh.
But as you can see all around town today, once air conditioning became a household staple, many of those beautiful porches began disappearing.
