"a salary of $400 a year for me, which was less than that paid to both the cashier and the teller!" ~Edwin Leidy

100 Penn Avenue

Since I was the first President of this bank and held that position for 20 years, I'll tell you the story of how Telford got its bank. Remember me? I'm Edwin C. Leidy. It just so happened that in 1908 a few citizens, Nathaniel E. Wampole, Charles H. Price, Sr., and Harry Z. Wampole decided a well should be dug to provide water to the six new houses built by Wampole over on Poplar Street. You probably know that street as West Broad Street today.

The Telford Water Company was organized in 1908 to build this well and it was estimated that a $5,000 loan would be required to get the project done. The Company applied to Souderton National Bank for the money and the application was denied.

That refusal got some of us thinking that Telford needed its own bank to handle our local matters. The bank was chartered, the building completed and opened for business by December of 1908. On that first day of business $17,822.25 in deposits were made!

But returning to the story about the well; the hand dug well was 30' deep with a 40' high tower topped by a wooden tank with a holding capacity of 15,000 gallons of water. The stone removed from the digging was used to build the house at 176 West Broad Street. This well ran dry after hooking up the County Line Hotel, so an artesian well was created by digging the old well to a depth of 90'. The new well now had a flow of 100 gallons of water a minute.

On a side note; lest you think I was in this for the money, in 1914, the Board of Directors approved a salary of $400 a year for me, which was less than that paid to both the cashier and the teller!

 

122 Penn Avenue

I love watching the train go by. I get excited seeing the men work the hand pumper for fires, too. But I'll never forget May 27, 1903. This was the day when sparks and hot coal from the train set Moses Shelly's business and lots of other houses and buildings on fire and the pumper couldn't do anything about it. Of course, I wasn't there when it started. I was in bed at 10:00pm when it happened, but the noise and commotion and the shouting soon got me up and going!

The fire was so big and hot that nothing could stop it. The only thing the hand pumper could do was put out small fires at the edges. There were people everywhere-- trying to wake up neighbors and get them out of their houses, fighting the fire as best they could with hoses and buckets, getting the horses and livestock out of barns and stables. It was terrible and I will admit, I was never as scared as I was that night.

The next morning, I could see more clearly what the fire had done. There were black empty spaces where Moses Shelly's feed store, grinding mill, cider press, stable, ice house, part of the lumber yard and two lumber sheds, hog pens, and stock piles with lots of coal, hay, and lumber had stood. The County Line Hotel shed, livery and stockyard were gone, and the side of the building was blistered, but the hotel still stood. Three frame houses were burned out and the wheelwright and blacksmith shops, too. All I could do was stand and look in shocked amazement.

That same morning a railroad crew came out to fix the rails that had buckled by the heat. By the time they were done and the next train came through, it took only nine hours to get everything going again. You should have seen the crowds that came to Telford on the train to see what had happened. Telford was quite a tourist destination for a couple of days after the fire.

Well, we all learned a lesson that night. Town Council got right on with it and picked Wallace Wolf to get things organized and the Telford Fire Company was started in earnest. The next year, we had begun building the fire house right here where you are standing. We got some better equipment to handle any future fires.

After seeing the fire that night, I plan to be a fire fighter when I get a little bigger and stronger, so I can help when something like this happens again. Fire can be a terrible thing.

 

126 Penn Avenue

Welcome to Telford Square! It looks quite a bit different from when I owned and operated the Telford Hotel just across the way. You would never even suspect that a hotel had once been here, but in its heyday, my hotel was the place to be in town.

My name, by the way, is John M. Kuhn, hotelier extraordinaire. Between the horse races with Texas ponies brought in by rail, horse and cow sales, horse and buggy rentals, and rooms for let by travelers and cigar-making boarders, something was always happening here. I'll get to the social organizations in a moment.

I admit I encouraged those cow jockeys to bring in their livestock for sale. I knew it would bring in prospective buyers, who would need to stay in my rooms for a few nights! Speaking of rooms for let, with the large number of travelers here at any given time needing room and board; I had the largest dining room and washing facilities in town to handle the demands. Had you heard that I used a St. Bernard on a treadmill to power the washing machine for the hotel's laundry? That's really true!

I had a livery in the back for horse and buggy rentals, as I said, and to stable the lodgers' own horse or carriage. Of course those horses needed grooming and feeding, so I hired a hostler to care for it all. We even had valet service, because the horse or horse and carriage were usually at the front door when our guests were ready to depart.

Out back with the livery were also the cow barn and stock yard, which were needed for those livestock sales I mentioned. I had quite an enterprise going here!

That livery had a second floor hall, which was used for those social groups I mentioned. We had public meetings, singing groups, fairs, parties, and a Debating Society. I had room for it all. Gosh darn, but those were the days!

 

132 Penn Avenue

Jonathan Wolf, the town's best builder, constructed this structure in 1900. You know where Mr. Wolf's mill was over at 179 on Poplar Street, don't you? This was a fine three-story building with as much activity as the hotel next door, but a bit more refined activity, if you get my drift.

The first floor had a Dry Goods and Clothing store, always needed in a thriving town. I, myself shopped here regularly for food staples. My Johann always liked the biscuits I made with the raisins and apple butter, I just didn't have the time to make. And apple butter was so good on my biscuits! I was sorry to see Mr. Blank close the doors to move away to Pennsburg to open a shop there.

The second story was the Club Room for the Stag Club. You know young men always need a place to meet so they stay out of mischief. Our son was a member there for a number of years when he turned 16. Although I've never seen it myself, I understand it contained pool tables, piano, a card room, and other entertainment. I prefer to think of this entertainment as being our Telford Coronet Band!

The third floor was the Lodge Hall for those secret fraternal organizations like the Wallawatoola Tribe of the Improved Order of Red Men and the Knights of Golden Eagles. Now mind you, I only heard rumors as to what goes on at lodge meetings, but I was told that the Red Men are descended from the Sons of Liberty, America's first fraternal organization. Why the Sons were founded before the Revolutionary War to fight for America's independence! It's rumored that some of the men in the Boston Tea Party were members of the Sons of Liberty. I believe the Red Men organized their group using the democratic practices of the Iroquois Nation and Native American customs, traditions, ceremonies and words during the meetings. It was a sight to see all these Indians going to Menlo Park for their annual Reunion with the music, speeches, foot races, and baseball game. Some of those Indians acted quite fierce at times.

The other organization using the Lodge Hall was the Knights of the Golden Eagles. Again, I just heard it rumored the Knights were founded in Baltimore in 1873 and base their notions on being Knights on the Crusades. Have you ever heard such a thing! The Lodge Hall is called a Castle and the members go through initiations like they are Pilgrims, Knights, and Crusaders where they learn: valor, courage and fidelity, religion, charity, temperance, hospitality, and courtesy and honor. Seems like any of these knights might be good marriage material, doesn't it?

Oh, in case you are wondering, I deliberately didn't give you my name for fear that you would think me proud, boastful or a gossip! God forbid you should think such a thing, but there you are. People get such funny notions sometimes.

 

110-115 N. Third Street

Lester N. Freed is my name. How are you? You've seen those cigar factories over along Main Street in Souderton. Well, Telford had one too, right next to the railroad tracks on Franconia Avenue,Third Street today. At its peak, Theobald and Oppenheimer was the biggest employer in our little town. There were three floors filled with people taking in the tobacco, sorting the leaves by sizes (the biggest ones were used for the outer wrapping.), cutting the leaves to take out the veins, rolling the cigars, trimming the ends, packaging them in the cigar boxes and then getting the boxes ready for train delivery.

After the war, the cigar industry became automated and factories moved down south. Down there they were closer to most of the tobacco fields and cheaper labor was to be had. Fortunately for us, textile companies moved into the buildings left empty by the cigar factories. That was when Sackman Brothers came to Telford.

Before the textile factories, most of the sewing was done by women in their homes. A man would come by the house and drop off the fabric. The shirt pieces would then either be hand sewn or sewed on the sewing machine, if they had one. In a week or two the man would return to pick-up the finished shirts, pay the women for them and leave more fabric. In this way the women made a little extra household money.

At its height from the 1920s to 1950s, Sackman Brothers employed over 200 people. There were jobs for people to trace the patterns, cut the fabric, thread the machines, sew the pieces together, sew in the labels, press the finished product, and then check it, bundle a number of pieces, and package them together.

Sackman's was known for the play suits it made. You call them costumes today. As with any industry, Sackman's had to continually change its product line to stay in business. So we first made play suits of comic book characters and the movie idols of the day like Superman, Lone Ranger, and Flash Gordon and the Ming Dynasty complete with the Flash jet propulsion backpack and Ming ray gun, as well as Halloween costumes, rain suits, and baseball, football, and majorette uniforms.

Next came the Cowboy and Indian play suits of Roy Rogers, Dale Evans, Davy Crockett, and others. The outfits came complete with pants, shirt, and vest all decorated with studs and felt, fur or leather. The cowboy chaps were made from hides imported from Russia, which were sent to the factory in dog poop. The hides were attached to a bar in a large tower. The bar was hauled to the top and shaken to get all the poop off the hides, which was then given to the local farmers as imported manure for their fields. All this dirty work went on in the basement and fortunately I never had to go down there.

After that came the making of shirts and blouses. I remember there was one blouse known as Pennies From Heaven, which my brother designed. Pennies were surrounded by metal circles with a hook and these were the buttons for the blouse. After that we were fortunate to get a contract to make undershorts and shirts for the Navy during the war and that kept us going in the hard times.

When the textile industry left town, Fashion Bug used the building as a clothing outlet. Later, Tupperware used it as a distribution center. When Tupperware left, the building sat vacant and a plan to convert it into apartments failed. For years, the building suffered from neglect and decay and was finally torn down and Nobel Oaks was built in its place.

I guess with the technology games children play today, the play suits aren't missed, but I sure had fun with the Flash Gordon play suit my brother brought home!

 

North Pennsylvania Railroad

Hello, there. Come on in and get comfortable by the pot-belly stove. My name is Richard Moyer and I was the first station agent of the North Pennsylvania Railroad here in "Hendrick's Blacksmith Shop". In case you are not "up" on your local history, railroad construction was finished here in 1857 and connected Philadelphia with Bethlehem. (This was known as the Bethlehem Spur.)

Train riding in our day wasn't like in the 21st Century. Sparks would fly through the open windows and burn holes in your clothes. Along with the sparks came the black smoke from the engine stacks.

Most times, men passengers were smoking their big cigars, a natural thing to do. And the sounds of the creaking springs and hinges, and the noise of the rails made talking fairly hard to do. But oh, it was exciting to see the train come down the tracks!

About 10 years later, local people paid to have a station built. When it was done, the railroad called this stop Telford, after a Scottish Civil engineer, so what had once been known as County Line, now became Telford. Oh, there really wasn't much of a town here though, before the railroad came through. In fact, we only had a few houses and a blacksmith shop. But after the railroad came, things started to pick up.

That same year, Jacob N. Souder, a man of vision to be sure, started building the first hotel here, the County Line Hotel. You can see it from here if you look north along the County Line. It had bake and wash houses, a livery, and large hall out back. The Evangelicals started holding services in the William Bergey Hall every other Sunday evening starting in 1893 when they were first organized. They continued to meet there until 1896 when their building over on Hamlin Avenue was completed and dedicated. But the Hall also held Telford Chamber of Commerce banquets, singing schools, fairs, and other public gatherings and meetings. The livery provided horse and carriage rentals and noon feeding and grooming for the horses of people passing through. On the second floor were rooms for rent for travelers and businessmen. The County Line Hotel was the local meeting place for salesmen and businessmen in town. Businessmen would come into the bar and people would meet up with them to pay their bills. After the bill paying, the businessmen always bought a beer for their customers. That's a fine way to do business, in my way of thinking.

But, I was talking about our town growing; did you know that at one time our little town was the largest milk shipping town on this route? The Milk Train came through at 6:30 every morning to take 2,000 quarts of our fine, fresh farm milk down to Berks Street in Philadelphia for the folks in the city.

That reminds me, I think it's about time for my lunch. Thanks for stopping by. I'd be happy to sell you a ticket anytime you want to take a ride to the big city.

 

120 North Main Street

I'd like to introduce myself. I'm Warren Fenstermacher. My brother, Frank and I were responsible for building this unique structure in 1905. It was conveniently located diagonally across the railroad tracks from my home, the large, beautiful, old Victorian house over there at 49 North Main Street.

When we opened for business, Frank had his barbershop in the front and Jacob Kratz used the side entrance of the building for his meat store. The upstairs had a large room used for public gatherings and meetings and was the original home to the Stag Club until it moved over to the Telford Hotel.

The Stag Club was quite popular with the young men until World War I broke out, then most of the town's young men went off to war. When they returned, they generally got married and were no longer young stags.

From 1868 to 1871 we also housed the post office in this building until Alexander Sellers became the postmaster and moved it over to his establishment at the Telford Hotel. But the post office came back here again after the meat store closed in the 1940s and while Ernest Wolf was the postmaster. The post office stayed here until the new building was completed on Penn Avenue and Harold Hedrick, Sr. was the postmaster.

The barber shop closed in the early 1970s and was converted into the Towne Restaurant by Donald Moyer and continues to operate as a restaurant today.

I'm glad to see the Fenstermacher Building has withstood the test of time and is still a meeting place for people to discuss the things happening in town. Whether in a store, shop, hotel or saloon, the people of Telford have always liked to gather to share the events in their lives.

 

217 North Main Street

Hello, Miss. How are you doing today? What a fine day. Do you need help finding something? As you can see we have the groceries over here, the hardware supplies are over on that side, and the delicatessen is in the rear. Can I get you anything?

The dry goods are upstairs. Tell me what you need and how much and I'll get my brother to bring it down for you. What? I'll have to check our inventory on the third floor to see if I have any left. Do you mind waiting for a minute over here by the pot belly stove while I get our boy to run up there?  

Hello Harold! How are you? Come to pay your mother's bill, have you? Well, thank you. Here is your receipt. Be sure to thank her and your father for me, too, will you? And here is a Nickel Hershey bar for you for bringing me the money. Now, be sure you share it with your brothers and sisters. There is plenty of chocolate in that big bar to go around. Good- bye.

Good to see you, Enos. I have your order right here. Is there anything else the Missus needs before you leave? Do you want to pay for it now or wait until next Friday? Need any help getting your order loaded? Thanks for stopping by. I'll see you next week.

Well, boys have you decided on the kind of penny candy you want? How much do you have to spend? My particular favorite is the gumdrops, but then the taffy does last longer. Well, if it's hard candy you want we have rock candy over here. Take your time. I know it's a big decision. No hurry.

It's a busy life owning and running Gerhart's Store here on Main Street. There's always something to do: wait on customers, stock the shelves (though I do have help with that) check the inventory, order more goods, go over the books, and pay the farmers for their goods after checking the quality and amount. My brothers and I take pride in offering quality goods here at our store and we stand behind our products and our service. You can shop with confidence here with us. Come back again, won't you? By the way, my name is Isaac Gerhart and these are my brothers, Howard and Abraham.

 

104 E Broad Street

I am a bit of a local historian. As such, I took it upon myself to write and paint the bits and pieces of Telford history as I remember them or as my father related to me. Having lived in the later part of the 20th Century, my information may be a bit more contemporary, but no less important than what has been relayed to you by the actual people themselves. My name is Charles H. Price, Jr.

The Gerhart building, constructed about 1908 had always been a textile factory. It began as a shirt factory, then the building passed through a number of owners until Godshall and Koffel took over the business in the 1920s. Gone was the shirt factory. Now the sewers specialized in producing men's trousers for the New York market. This factory was similar to Sackman Brothers in that there were cutters, sewers, pressers, and shippers and all the other laborers needed to keep everyone busy. From the sewers, the pants went to the pressers to open the inseams and then the finished trousers were checked, bundled once more and shipped back to New York.

Swagger Pants Factory took over after Godshall and Koffel. This operation differed from the Godshall and Koffel work, in that all the trousers fabric came from New York already cut. All that remained to be done was the sewing of the inseams, pockets, waistbands, zipper flaps and zippers, pressing the finished trousers, quality control, packaging, and shipping them back to New York. After Swagger closed down, the Cocker-Weber Brush Company bought the building in 1985 and continues to operate from this building today.