This aerial view of Elizabethville, Dauphin County, Pennsylvania, appeared in a 12 May 1926 article on Elizabethville in the Harrisburg Evening News. The photo was taken by Fairchild Aerial Survey Inc. as is noted in the lower left corner. Presumably, it was taken around 1926. Since the copy available for this blog post is a poor digital version of the Evening News from Newspapers.com, a clearer version must be available somewhere – and perhaps can be reproduced to replace this picture.
It appears from the position of the mountain to the right, Berry Mountain, that the picture was taken from the west looking east. Faintly seen in the upper left corner is Short Mountain.
The article accompanying the photograph told some of the history of the borough, noted some of the industrial activities, and described the government and some of the fraternal organizations. It concluded with the following information about the transportation facilities:
Elizabethville occupies a strategic position in the state’s highway system. The heavily traveled Millersburg-Pottsville highway connects in Elizabethville with the important northern highway route through the Uniontown Gap [at Pillow] to Shamokin. in former years, the old road from Elizabethville, over Berry Mountain, was extensively used as a short route from the Lykens and Williams Valleys and other northern points to Harrisburg and points south.
Thousands of automobile tourists and a great volume of truck traffic pass through the town annually. Many motorists make the town an overnight stopping place, often filling the town’s two modern hotels to capacity.
Elizabethville is an important passenger and freight station on the Summit Branch of the Pennsylvania Railroad. It is also situated on two motor bus routes.
Corrections and additional information should be added as comments to this post.
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The Harrisburg Evening News contracted exclusively with Fairchild to produce aerial photographs of towns in their news coverage area. The Elizabethville photo was No. 12 in a series. The only communities photographed in the the Lykens Valley area were: Elizabethville, Millersburg, Lykens, Williamstown, Wiconisco, and Halifax.