HISTORICAL SOCIETY ELECTRONIC NEWSLETTER June 1999 editor, J.R. Zane jrzane@bigfoot.com issue 4 A SPIN THROUGH HISTORY PLANNED FOR SEPTEMBER September 25th should be the date for the "road ramble" motor tour through Schuylkill and Carbon Counties. The tour will be limited to one hundred cars as 25 will start per hour from the starting point. There must be four people in a car - a pilot, navigator, spotter and recorder. Since this will be a fund-raiser as well as a fun-raiser, the exact fees for participation will be announced in July. The tour will start from Pottsville and end in Locust Gap at Mollies Pub with a dinner and prizes being awarded. The tour is being created with the assistance of Mike McGough and Howard Crown. Jerry Enders and Bill Kline are also rendering some professional guidance. BOARD MEETING HIGHLIGHTS At the monthly Board of Directors meeting which was held on Saturday June 19th, it was reported that the steps at the old Female Grammar School (the future headquarters) were broken during the construction project underway on Center Street. However the City promised to have these repaired. The state building inspector went through the building and approved of the renovations. Costly extras such as a sprinkler system and elevator will not be required. Although a sprinkler system is not being installed this does not mean that the building will not be fire protected as many safety features will be installed. A sprinkler system could pose as a water problem if it were to go off accidentally ruining countless historical artifacts. 1890 CENSUS PUBLICATION Good News for genealogists! The HSSC plans to re-publish the County Directory of 1890. As most of the 1890 Federal Census had been destroyed in a fire, it has always been difficult for genealogists and historians to get information on that particular year. The remains a gap between the 1880 census and the 1900 census which city and county directories can fill. Schuylkill County was lucky to have a county directory published for the year 1890 and most households are included. HSSC appreciates the work the internet volunteers are doing transcribing the directory for free research. However it was decided that many researchers would still like to have a permanent copy of the entire Directory on their respective library shelves. Of course the book is very lengthy and HSSC will send out a flyer to determine how many books it could sell PRIOR to publication. If you are interested in obtaining a copy then please let John at HSSC headquarters know. The anticipated cost will be $69.50 plus shipping and handling which should be approximately $4.00. HSSC SUPPORTS THE EFFORTS OF THE MAHANOY CITY HISTORICAL SOCIETY The Rite-Aid Drug Store Corporation which operates numerous stores in the County has a philosophy that protecting history is not compatible with making a profit. Rite Aid wants ALL of its nationwide stores to project the same 'mall image of America' which requires any of its downtown stores to have the same appearance irregardless of whether or not it is located in a historical district. Since many of Schuylkill County's downtowns have century-old buildings, this requires Rite-Aid and other mega-corporations to look at historical preservationists and historians as barriers in their effort to make America one big strip mall. Mahanoy City Preservationists are like David to the Rite Aid Goliath and are fighting back to protect the few remaining historically significant buildings in the borough. At the June 19th meeting the Directors of HSSC went on record to support the efforts to stop the destruction of history, to stop the destruction of Main Street America, and to stop the corporate mentality that people should be viewed only as consumers without regard to the local history of the Community. This is not just a problem for Mahanoy City. It is a nationwide problem of a war waged by megacorporations to make all of America look alike by stripping every town, city and borough of any semblance of its respective history.