Franklin and Fulton Counties, Part Two : Along Route 16

 Have you ever had a day when you planned exactly what you wanted to do, and the weather and traffic worked well, and you were able to do everything? Me neither, except for December 14, 2021. I had planned to visit Pennsylvania Route 16, across southern Franklin County from Tuscarora Mountain on the west to the Blue Ridge on the east, through the towns (boroughs in Pennsylvania) of Mercersburg, Greencastle and Waynesboro to Blue Ridge Summit on the Maryland line. 

The weather was way too warm for mid-December (as it has been through most of December in the Middle Atlantic states), about 55 in the afternoon from just below freezing in the morning. I had breakfast at the motel, then headed out about 9 west on U.S. 30 to Fort Loudon at the base of Tuscarora Mountain, then south to the birthplace of James Buchanan, the United States President from 1857 to 1861, the years leading up to the Civil War. The plaques there say that Buchanan's father ran a stop for people heading over the mountain, the "frontier" after the American Revolution. People needed help getting over the mountain. The house where Buchanan was born is no longer there, but there is a monument to Buchanan. 

I headed southeast on Route 16 to Mercersburg. There is a historic district in the center of town, the Mercersburg Academy, where James Buchanan went to school, and the Lane House from 1828, where Harriet Lane, Buchanan's niece, was born. She served as hostess in the White House for her bachelor uncle. I don't have a pic of the Lane House.

From there, I continued to Greencastle, a more upscale town, where there is also a historic district, containing an old-fashioned non-chain department store. I walked around in the warming weather.

By lunchtime, as I planned, I was in Waynesboro, the largest borough on Route 16. There is a several block long commercial and historic district. I found a few restaurants, but they were all closed at noon on a Tuesday. I finally spied Nikki's on Main Street near the center of town. No one was in there, and I thought it might be closed too, but the door was open and I walked in. It seemed an Asian fusion place with Kim-chi burritos. I don't know. I got a chicken ramen bowl, made with chicken broth. It wasn't cheap at $16.99, but it was huge and delicious, with chunks of chicken, noodles, scallions, green, um... something, not too salty. It was better than Grandma's chicken soup. A few more people came in after me. I wandered around the historic sites in town, and found suburban housing tracts, the reason why this county is included in Baltimore-Washington. It's far to the central cities, but fifty-four miles  to Gaithersburg in Montgomery County and  Owings Mills in Baltimore County.

I found out that Route 16 was the road from the frontier mountains, heading southeast through Waynesboro to Westminster or Emmitsburg, Maryland, then to Baltimore, the closest tidewater port city, by way of Reisterstown Road, near where I grew up. 

I headed to Blue Ridge Summit, on the Maryland Line, where there is a library in a former railroad station. Camp Louise, the Jewish girls' camp that was paired with Camp Airy, the camp for boys that I attended in the early '60s, had Blue Ridge Summit, Pennsylvania as its post office, even though the camp was in Maryland. 

I went north from there to find Penn State, Mont Alto, set up as the forestry school for the Penn State system. Mont Alto Park was Pennsylvania's first state park. I drove past there to the Appalachian Trail, along the Blue Ridge. I found a place to park just off the road, and determined to walk fifteen minutes up the trail. The trail is narrow and rocky, and I'm not in great shape, but I did it, snapping some pics along the way. 

From there, I drove back to the motel and crashed for an hour. I had figured out where Panera is located and ordered from the counter (not the touch screen). I sat in a corner away from others. Many of the people who came in had ordered carry out to pick up. 

I was happy that I checked off everything I wanted to do for the day, that the weather was beautiful (good for me, bad for the planet), that I learned a lot, had a good meal, and didn't get lost. 

Wednesday, I drove back west across Franklin County to Fulton County, where I spent a few hours before heading home. 

Monument to President James Buchanan, 1907, near Cove Gap

Buck Run, James Buchanan State Park

U.S. Post Office, Mercersburg

Mercersburg Historic District

Burgin Center for the Arts, Mercersburg Academy, 2006, 

On campus at Mercersburg Academy, now a boarding and commuter high school, formerly Marshall College

On the square, Baltimore Street, Greencastle

Stone and log house near Greencastle

Waynesboro Armory, 1938, now the office of a real estate firm

Waynesboro Theater, renovated 2015

Oller House, 1891-2, Waynesboro

Borough Hall, 1881, East Main Street, Waynesboro

Alexander Hamilton House (not the guy from Hamilton), 1816, East Main St., Waynesboro

Wall mural, Waynesboro

Royer-Nicodemus House, about 1812, Renfrew Park

                                            

Barn at Royer-Nicodemus Farm, Waynesboro

Waynesboro Historic District, Main Street

Blue Ridge Summit Library, originally Western Maryland Railroad Station, 1891

Mont Alto State Park

Penn State, Mont Alto

Along the Appalachian Trail near Mont Alto

Franklin and Fulton Counties in Pennsylvania, Part 1: Chambersburg

Franklin County does not look promising when one drives in on Interstate 81 from Maryland. There are acres of beige boxes off the interstate, each with a giant truck in front. The highway is two lanes in each direction and jammed with trucks. 

I had in my head that it was 132 miles from Morgantown to Chambersburg, but I had written down 162. I thought I would be in Chambersburg by twelve, but it was after one when I finally got there, hungry and with a full bladder. I wanted to park in the middle of downtown, but I neglected to stuff my pockets with quarters before I left home, so I couldn't park at the meters. I knew there was a shopping center a few blocks from the center of town, and I found free parking and a Chinese restaurant. The sign on the door said "Sorry. We will be closed on Mondays." It was Monday. I retraced my drive on US 30, Lincoln Way East (you know you're not in Virginia when the street is named "Lincoln") to Hardee's, a place I don't typically eat because of a homophobic owner thirty or forty years ago. They had free parking, the bathrooms were in a vestibule just inside the door, and clean, and a real person took my order. I had the breaded chicken sandwich, no fries, thanks. I felt like Anthony Bourdain, of blessed memory. I bit into the too-yellow roll and the fried, crusty piece of chicken finished with a mayonnaisey dressing and dill pickles. I had to look at the sandwich after biting into it, and try to think of something complimentary to say about this exotic cuisine. 

I got four quarters from the nice young man at the counter and tried again downtown. Chambersburg has a pretty downtown, with a traffic circle at the junction of US 11 and US 30, the center of town. I found ten places on the National Register of Historic Places , and a synagogue that says it's been there a hundred years. I took a pic of the synagogue, in a narrow building at least a hundred years old, but it didn't show up on my phone/camera. Many of the stores were vacant. I found a bookstore (closed Monday), and there were a few stores with booths where people sell their old dishes, toys, books, records, CDs, clothes and general junk. I looked for the six CDs from my list, but couldn't find any of them. Many of the storefront windows had model trains set up with miniature snowy little towns. I found Wilson College at the north end of town. It's a pretty campus and I took a few pictures there. The nearby neighborhood has big old houses on wooded lots. 

The motel at "The Usual Chain" was two exits up from downtown, not walking distance to anything. There was a farm behind it. Chambersburg Mall was a short distance down the road. Like so many malls, it was almost empty. There was a movie theater and a J.C. Penney store open, and a mammoth store selling "stuff" in booths, like in town. Many of the booths looked like rooms in my house. I spent close to an hour there looking for the CDs on my list.  It doesn't help that I'm only looking for six titles. 

I looked for restaurants for dinner after my nap. All I could find were chains, all grouped around the exit off I-81 between downtown and my motel. I thought I would go to Panera, but I couldn't find it in the maze of parking lots. I found a Giant Food supermarket, which had some options, but nothing appealing. I ended up at Subway down the row from Giant, and, contrary to my usual custom, got carry-out, because I had hardly seen anyone in a mask, and listening to the radio, all I heard was that Covid infections were multiplying and hospitals in Pennsylvania were jam-packed. I listened to the television news, on cable from Washington. Wikipedia says Franklin County is part of the Washington-Baltimore SMSA. Washington is one hundred miles from Chambersburg. I planned out a complicated day ahead, along Route 16 from James Buchanan's Birthplace to Blue Ridge Summit and the Appalachian Trail. Part Two will be that, and part three will be Fulton County, twenty miles west of Chambersburg, where I spent most of Wednesday morning.

Memorial Fountain and Statue, 1878, Junction of US 30 and US 11 in downtown Chambersburg

Franklin County Courthouse, 1865. The prior courthouse was burned by Confederate  troops in 1864.

Coyle Free Library, 1891

Franklin County Jail, 1818. Cell block behind it is from 1880

Ritner Boarding House, also known as John Brown House, because he roomed there in 1859 prior to his raid on Harper's Ferry.

Masonic Temple, originally 1823-24

Storefront, Chambersburg Historic District. This is the office of a radio station now.

Townhouse Row, North Main St.

Shop window before Christmas on North Main St.

Wilson College Campus

Zion Reformed Church, 1811-1813