The state Highway Department historical marker erected in the 1920's at the east end of town states that Mechanicsburg, settled in the 1790's and incorporated in 1828, is "named for a settlement of mechanics." Legend states that pioneers traveling along the Trindle and Simpson Ferry roads on their way west stopped here to repair wagons damaged during the crossing of the Susquehanna river which flows east of the settlement.
Perhaps if a symbol were to be chosen for historians, it would be an owl. The wise old owl, who listens more than he speaks, just as the historian is supposed to observe and study before he publishes his essay into the past. Yet, upon reading historical essays, one begins to sense that historians might more appropriately march beneath the sign of the parrot. History, which began as the most inquisitive of arts, often degrades into repeating accepted wisdom, and the received tradition replaces individual inquiry.
World War II had an enormous impact on the citizens of the United States. The country was struggling for its very existence. All sections of the country felt the impact including the borough schools of Mechanicsburg.
Towns often start in strange ways, following paths not first expected by their planners. The farther we are removed from those founding days, furthermore, the more difficult it becomes to reconstruct just how a town began. After the passage of a century or more, most tangible vestiges of the early days are gone and we are left with only the old myths and oral traditions. So it is with Mechanicsburg. Almost.
Americans have a love-hate relationship with the city. Thomas Jefferson wanted to create a country of gentlemen farmers because cities were a haven for men with radical ideas and dangerous to the "morals, the health, and the liberties of men.” The image of the city did not improve during the nineteenth century.
A paper presented to the Carlisle Fortnightly Club on March 13, 1899 In these days of rapid history making, when one important event follows closely upon another, and since our country has expanded her boundaries so that we not only say "our States and Territories", but we can add "our Colonies", we give a little gasp as we glance backward and realize what changes a few years have wrought.
This first issue of Cumberland County History inaugurates a new era in publishing for the Cumberland County Historical Society and the Hamilton Library Association. Publications, which have been a mainstay of the society's programming for more than a century, are an activity of great interest to the membership.
Spinning off the Pennsylvania Turnpike at the Carlisle exit, the road-weary traveler might easily forget the considerably developed and congested 1.2- mile section of US Route 11 which serves as the only link between the Turnpike and Interstate 81, known locally as the "Miracle Mile." Presiding over this busy commercial strip is a distinctive red, white and blue truck stop called the "All American Travel Plaza."
John Armstrong has rightly been labeled "the First Citizen of Carlisle. "He was a justice of the peace, the principal official of local government in the British dominions; a county judge, chief land surveyor of Cumberland County, assemblyman, colonel of the colonial Pennsylvania Regiment, an original member of the Pennsylvania revolutionary committee of safety; brigadier general of the Continental Army, major general of the Pennsylvania militia, delegate to the Continental Congress, and an original trustee of Dickinson College.