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About This City
Lancaster, the Red Rose City, is a city in the south-central part of the U.S. state of Pennsylvania and is the county seat of Lancaster County. With a population of 55,351, it is ranked as the 515th-largest city in the United States. (Lancaster County, with its suburbs, boroughs, and townships, is the 99th largest metropolitan statistical area in the United States, with an estimated population (in 2005) of 490,562.)
Locals quickly recognize visitors to Lancaster by the way they pronounce Lancaster. Natives typically pronounce it as LANK-i-stir, rather than LAN-CAS-ter (with the first two syllables more or less equally stressed), as is the common pronunciation for other Lancasters in the US.
History
Land was part of the 1681 Penn's Woods Charter of William Penn.
Lancaster was a planned city, first laid out by James Hamilton in 1734, and
chartered as a borough in 1742, but not incorporated as a city until 1818.
Named after the English city of Lancaster by native John Wright. Its symbol,
the red rose, is from the House of Lancaster. The Lancaster County Prison
was built in the 1850s to resemble Lancaster Castle in Lancashire.
The oldest church in the city is the Trinity Lutheran Church, founded in
1729.
The Philadelphia and Lancaster Turnpike, built in 1795 was the first
long-distance, paved road in the United States. It linked Philadelphia to
Lancaster.
Lancaster was capital of Pennsylvania from 1799 to 1812, when the capital
was moved to the more central location of Harrisburg.
Before the famous Lewis and Clark Expedition began, Meriwether Lewis
traveled to Lancaster to work with astronomer Andrew Ellicott and to learn
to plot latitude and longitude as part of his training so that he could lead
the expedition to the Pacific Ocean.
Lancaster was capital of the American colonies on September 27, 1777 when
the Continental Congress fled Philadelphia, which had been captured by the
British. After meeting one day, they moved still farther away, to York.
On June 28, 1863, a local militia unit set the Columbia-Wrightsville bridge
on fire to prevent quickly advancing Confederate troops from entering
Lancaster County. This tactic not only forced Robert E. Lee’s Confederates
to retreat but to change course, indirectly leading them to the watershed
battle at Gettysburg. The Columbia-Wrightsville bridge used to link
Lancaster County to York County
The Fulton Opera House, finished in October 1852, claims to be the oldest
theater to give continuous performances in the United States, although after
the owner was arrested for offering burlesque - "exhibiting immoral shows" -
in 1920, it was operated as a second-rate movie house, rather than a
theatre, for half a century.
In 1886, Milton S. Hershey founded the Lancaster Caramel Company. In 1900,
he sold the Mount Joy, Pennsylvania business for $1 million to American
Caramel Company (incorporated in 1898 as a merger of York and Philadelphia
confectioners, and used the funds to build the Hershey Chocolate factory by
1905 in nearby Derry Church, his birthplace.
Frank W. Woolworth, opened his first "Woolworth 5¢ Store" store on Queen
Street on June 21, 1879; an earlier nickel store, called "Great 5c Store" in
Utica, New York closed after 3 months. It wasn't until November 6, 1880,
that the store became "Woolworth's 5 and 10". The original Lancaster store
was replaced by a multistory building with a garden on the roof. Although
the last Woolworth dimestore closed in 1998, the company lives on as Foot
Locker.
Lancaster was one of the winning communities for the All-America City award
in 2000.
In 1821, The Germanic custom of having a specially decorated Christmas tree
at Christmas time was introduced to America by Pennsylvania Dutch in
Lancaster, Pennsylvania.
Geography
Lancaster is located at 40°2'23" North, 76°18'16" West (40.039860,
-76.304366)GR1, and is 368 feet above sea level.
The city is located about 34 miles southeast of Harrisburg, 70 miles west of
Philadelphia, 55 miles north-northeast of Baltimore and 87 miles north of
Washington, D.C.
The nearest towns and boroughs are Millersville (4.0 miles), Willow Street
(4.8 miles), East Petersburg (5.3 miles), Lititz (7.9 miles), Landisville
(8.6 miles), Mountville (8.8 miles), Rothsville (8.9 miles), and Leola (8.9
miles).
According to the United States Census Bureau, the city has a total area of
19.2 km² (7.4 mi²). 19.2 km² (7.4 mi²) of it is land and 0.14% is water.
Climatology
Lancaster, America's oldest inland city, is located in the heart of the
"Pennsylvania Dutch Country" of southeastern Pennsylvania. Slightly over 100
miles to the southeast is the Atlantic Ocean while 30 miles to the northwest
is the southern-most ridge of the central Pennsylvania mountain system. The
city itself lies almost in the geographical center of Lancaster County where
rich flat to gently rolling farmland extensively cultivated.
Because of the protection afforded by the mountains of central Pennsylvania,
Lancaster enjoys a comparatively moderate climate. Conditions range from
relatively mild in winter to warm and humid in summer with noticeable
weather changes every few days throughout the year. Daily temperatures
average near to above freezing throughout the year even though minimum
readings normally drop below freezing on 135 days, 2 of which go below zero.
Several very cold outbreaks can be expected most winters but moderation
usually takes place rather rapidly. The lowest temperature ever recorded at
Lancaster was -27° on January 14, 1912. Occasional warm spells, even in mid
winter, produce maximum readings in the 50s and 60s. A high of 77° was
reached as recently as January 26, 1950. Summers are normally quite warm and
humid with temperatures averaging 72° and humidity frequently better than
60% during the June through August period. Heat waves periodically produce
uncomfortable conditions for up to several days at a time. During such times
daytime temperatures climb into the 90s and above and nighttime readings
remain in the 70s. Several such heat waves have produced high temps of 104°
with the record high temperature of 107° occurring on August 7th, 1918.
Spring and fall are the transition seasons. As sunshine becomes more
prevalent during spring, temperatures are on the increase while the reverse
is true in fall as the amount of sunshine decreases although autumn sunshine
provides many mild days through most of October. Nights, however, are cool.
Alternate periods of freezing and thawing are common until May 3, the
average date of the last 32° temperature in spring, and after October 10,
the average date of the first 32° temperature in fall. The last date of 32°
is May 23 and the earliest is September 21 although the chance of a freeze
after May 10 or before October 2 is only 25%. The growing season, defined as
the period between freeze dates, averages 160 days but seasons have ranged
from 126 days in 1932 to 197 days in 1955.
Precipitation is normally plentiful and well distributed throughout the
year. annual amounts average better than 42 inches but have varied from 26
to 56 inches over the period of record. The range of precipitation between
the normally driest month, February, and the normally wettest month, August,
is almost 2.5 inches. Rainfall is greatest during the summer months with
close to 50% of the annual total recorded during the 5 month May through
September growing season. The greatest amount of rain ever received in one
month is 14.14 inches in June 1972, was produced by the remnants of Hurricane
Agnes. Such
storms, occasionally passing through or near the area from July through
October, bring rainfall of 3 to 5 inches in 24 to 48 hours. Heavy rainfall,
however, is most frequently produced from thundershowers which number 30 to
35 per year. Amounts of up to 2.5 inches in one hour and 3.6 inches in 2 hours
have been recorded at Lancaster. Although measurable precipitation normally
occurs every few days, there are times especially during summer and fall
when periods of 10 days to 2 weeks or more pass without significant
rainfall. During October, 1963, the driest month of record, only a trace of
rain was recorded for the entire month. The probability of receiving 1.5
inches or more per month, however, is better than 60% throughout the year.
Although 12.0 inches of snow fell in April 1916 and 2.4 inches in October
1940, the snow season is normally confined to the December through March
period. Seasonal totals, while averaging 26.5 inches, vary widely from year
to year as evidenced by the extremes of 1.8 inches for the 1958-59 season
and 59.8 inches recorded 2 years later during the 1960-1961 season.
Occasionally an entire winter month may pass with only a trace of snow while
in others as much as 15 to 20 inches may be measured. The greatest seasonal
snow total of record at Lancaster is 72.0 inches observed in 1996.
The record snowstorm total of 30 inches occurred January
7-8, 1996. Paralyzing snowstorms, however, are infrequent and of relatively
short duration. Snow covers the ground to varying depths an average of 32
days per winter.
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