This aerial view of Halifax, Dauphin County, Pennsylvania, appeared in a 19 May 1926 article on Halifax 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 that the picture was taken from the west looking east. The Susquehanna River is in the foreground.
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:
The town has played a part in the transportation history of the county. The old fort itself was established as a supply and communications station, but long before the arrival of the first white men, Indian trails converged at the canoe portage there.
When the Millersburg spur of the Pennsylvania Canal was built the town became a canal station, with taverns for the canal passengers and crews and facilities for canal freight. And then the Northern Central Railroad, now a division of the Pennsylvania System, was built through the town.
Halifax is located on the Susquehanna Trail. Motorists traversing Pennsylvania on this concrete highway pass the large stone and bronze tablet marking the site of Fort Halifax. The mounds of the historic outpost are still visible and amateur archaeologists still uncover Indian implements in the vicinity of the fort and at the old Indian cemetery on the point on Clemson’s Island in the Susquehanna River opposite the town.
Because of the proximity to both the river and mountains and its accessibility by improved motor roads and railroad, property in and near the settlement is in demand for suburban and summer homes….
Three large garages provide for the needs of the hundreds of automobile owners in and near the borough and of the hundreds of tourists who visit the town daily. The community’s hotel is the Keystone.
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 Halifax photo was No. 13 in a series. The only communities photographed in the the Lykens Valley area were: Elizabethville, Millersburg, Lykens, Williamstown, Wiconisco, and Halifax.