Ledger Post # 6-A

Fishing/Mill Creek

Creek Photographs

I wanted to include the photos below with my last post but did not have them prepared at the time. Mill Creek does not now look anything like it did before the 1946/48 City of Lebanon Water Supply Dam was built. Most people born after 1950 have no idea what this beautiful trout stream used to look like. I think there is some law on the books that says a water supply company can't completely cut all of the water off from a stream and let it dry up below the dam breast. I guess the same amount of water still comes down the creek below the second 1990's dam as did when the 1946/48 dam was built. The pictures below are only a fraction of the photos that are available of the creek. 

Local boys enjoying the Mill Creek swimming hole just below "The Big House", middle 1936 photo by A.W. Grumbine

 

1947 Photo by A.W. Grumbine. This Winter view looking down the creek.  The red circle, # 1 is where the same three rocks that are shown in the photo below set. The mid 1940's Lebanon Water Supply Dam was under construction at this time, however, the water was not restricted when this photo was taken. You can barely see "The Big House" through the trees, red # 2.

1930's Photo, looking up the creek, by A.W. Grumbine. The flat rock with the two rocks leaning on it, (red circle, # 1) are directly in line between  The log cabin and the Swatara Furnace stack; # 2, is the grass area just up from the cabin.

A 1920's Box camera photo from the W.T. Williams collection. The water is a little higher than normal in this photo

A few words now about the swimming hole dam, picture at the top. From my Uncle Bill Williams's 1932 diary, May 28th: "Up at 7:30, Built Dam, 31 in party, Water 6 ft, a great success, ate in Dell". 

George Boyer supplied all of the materials for the dam, log to be laid across the creek, lumber to be cut and nailed to the log, etc. The dam project was the idea of Philo Castle Dix; Mr Dix was the State of Pennsylvania's WMCA Secretary; his office and home were in Harrisburg, however, he also rented the smaller stone house (part of the original Swatara Furnace Plantations structures) from 1928 until 1947; Mr Dix and his family spent most of their summers, weekends and vacation time at the stone house on the road to Outwood.

The reason for building the dam was this: every Summer Mr Dix organized camping trips for YMCA boys, also Boy Scouts, form Eastern PA; these boys camped in an area between the Highbridge and the Swatara Furnace stack, the problem was that there was no area deep enough to swim in.

The dam builders were, some of the local kids, including my Uncles Bill and Lloyd Williams, the Stager boys and a group of WMCA boys who were camping at the time.

We will get back to the Furnace ledger book for the next post.