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Williamsport had reason to dance the Charleston

(EDITOR’S NOTE: This being Williamsport’s sesquicentennial year, Sesquicentennial Corner, a weekly Saturday series, will focus on the city’s history.)

It wasn’t just dancing the Charleston or sneaking into a speakeasy.

The Roaring ’20s in Williamsport was a time of advancement by industries, philathropic endeavors, transportation improvements and neighborhood expansion.

“It was a good economic time,” said Dr. John F. Piper Jr., local historian and retired dean of Lycoming College.

“It also was the years of the bands, public music and jazz,” Piper said.

And while Prince Farrington, known as the “Robin Hood bootlegger,” was providing liquor to thirsty violators of prohibition law, far more beneficial endeavors were taking place.

It marked the decade when two of today’s significant philanthropic organizations began to raise significant funds that were donated to the community in a variety of ways.

The Williamsport Foundation, forerunner to the First Community Foundation Partnership of Pennsylvania, was founded in 1916 but really took off in the 1920s, according to Piper.

In 1921, the foundation donated several thousand dollars to benefit the YMCA, YWCA, Salvation Army and Home for Aged Colored Women. The first substantial financial gift — $150,000 by Albert Young — was made to the foundation in 1922.

“That was a lot of money back then,” Piper said.

The Williamsport Foundation was the first community foundation founded in Pennsylvania, Piper said.

It was one of two philanthropic organizations of the era. The other was the Community Chest, predecessor of the Lycoming County United Way. The chest began in 1921 as the Community Welfare Corp. Both it and the foundation were modeled after a similar entity in Cleveland, Ohio, according to Piper.

The Community Chest evolved out of the Board of Trade. It organized a meeting in 1921, launching its first campaign in 1922 under the oversight of attorney Edgar Munson, the son of trade board founder LaRue Munson.

“It’s interesting the Board of Trade founded the Community Chest and the son of the founder of the Board of Trade became leader of the campaign in the 1920s,” Piper said.

In 1922, the Community Chest shared more than $90,000 with 12 community organizations.

As of today, the First Community Foundation Partnership of Pennsylvania, and Community Chest, have poured $60 million into the Williamsport area.

“We would be a different place without the foundation or United Way,” Piper said. While the foundation continued to concentrate donations on capital projects, more recently broadening those horizons, the United Way always has helped those in need, said Piper, who with his wife is chairing this year’s United Way campaign.

While the lumber industry remained viable, the city also saw an exponential growth in metal factories, such as Hermance Machinery, and others. By 1929, an estimated 3,974 workers were plying away in the metal industries, Piper said. Lumber businesses, such as furniture plants, employed about 1,553 workers, he said.

Another reason for a spurt in the economy was Lycoming Engines making a decision in 1927 to build airplane engines, Piper said.

That set the stage for the development of Piper Cubs in the mid- to late 1930s, he said.

One of the biggest city employers was J.K. Mosser and Co., the largest leather sole cutting company in the region, and Lycoming Rubber Co., and C.A. Reed, considered one of the largest paper production companies in the nation in the 1920s.

With the passage of the U.S. Highway Act of 1921, the county saw more paving of its road system.

That year, the Lycoming Hotel became the highest building in the city.

The Board of Trade increased its activity, publishing 50,000 pamphlets entitled “Beautiful Susquehanna Trail” and promoting the route over what is today’s Route 15 and its scenic overlook.

The Capitol Theater opened its doors in 1928 as a modern matinee palace built from part of the Sterling Hotel.

The first local airport opened in 1929, with aviatrix Amelia Earhart landing there for the grand opening.

Steps to improve the network of streets occurred, with stoplights installed.

And in 1926, another surburb was created when Franklin Plankenhorn opened Grampian Hills.

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