LancasterHistory

Now THAT’S how you close out a season. 🎶🌳

Last Saturday, we welcomed LancasterHistory members to the Carriage House patio for a special reception before our final Music on the Lawn concert of the year. It was a wonderful chance to gather, enjoy a beautiful late-summer afternoon on the Campus of History, and introduce members to our new Membership Coordinator, Holland Baldrige!

Then, we headed to the Wheatland lawn, where local favorite Matt Hostetter helped us send off another season of Music on the Lawn with a fantastic evening of live music in James Buchanan’s backyard.

To everyone who joined us throughout the summer - and especially to the members whose support helps make evenings like these possible - thank you for being part of the LancasterHistory community. ❤️

And thank you to Matt Hostetter for giving us an amazing finale! 🎸

A lot of helping hands in the Tanger Arboretum today! 🌳💚

As part of the United Way’s Week of Caring, nearly 40 volunteers from Fulton Bank joined us at LancasterHistory for a morning of hard work across our campus. Volunteers tended trees throughout the Arboretum, created tree rings, and tackled invasive ivy in the Beech Grove - all helping care for this beautiful, historic landscape we’re fortunate to call home.

And the work didn’t stop outside! More Fulton Bank volunteers lent a hand indoors, helping our Development team tackle a major stuffing project.

We’re incredibly grateful to everyone who spent their morning with us - and to Fulton Bank and United Way for bringing so many helping hands together, for us and for our community. Thank you! 🌿👏

Fulton Bank United Way of Lancaster County

History Happy Hour sure lived up to its name. 🍻

LancasterHistory historian and curator Stephanie Townrow took a sold-out crowd at The Exchange on a trip through the history hiding all around us in downtown Lancaster - and somehow turned it into a cross between “history evangelism” and a stand-up comedy routine.

The audience was captivated one minute and rolling with laughter the next. We learned about the streets and buildings just outside the windows of The Exchange, enjoyed some fantastic food and drinks, and were reminded that history is a whole lot of fun when you know where to look.

Did you know that in the early days of the Lancaster Central Market, vendors used to…let’s just say: get creative…to skirt having to pay rent for a market stall? Or that Thaddeus Stevens’ and James Buchanan’s law offices were once within a stone’s throw of one another?

Thank you to everyone who spent the evening with us, and to our generous sponsors, Henrietta Heisler Interiors and Lancaster Marriott at Penn Square, for making History Happy Hour possible.

We’ll raise a glass to that. 🍻

Sponsored by: Lancaster Marriott Penn Square • Henrietta Heisler Interiors Inc.

Hosted at the beautiful The Exchange (Lancaster, PA)

Sometimes, history has a way of coming full circle. 🎷

Three years ago, LancasterHistory’s Shianne Hargrove created an exhibition exploring Black Lancastrians in the arts. Among the people she featured was Vi Burnside - a Lancaster native who became one of the great saxophonists of her time, performing with some of the biggest names in jazz.

Fast forward to 2026.

Lancaster artist Keisha Finnie discovered Shianne’s work and found herself drawn to Vi’s story. When Keisha was selected to create this year’s Lancaster Print Crawl poster, she chose Vi as its subject - her portrait slowly coming to life, piece by piece, as participants made their way from station to station across the city.

And the connections don’t stop there.

Keisha is also the artist behind the monumental Legacies of Reconstruction mural inside our new Stevens & Smith Center - the very place where we welcomed Print Crawlers for one of this year’s stops.

For another amazing connection, a team from Thaddeus Stevens College of Technology brought along an incredible laser cutter, which sliced a section from each participant’s poster as they passed through the Stevens & Smith Center. Watching the machine at work was pretty mesmerizing - and having students from the college named for Thaddeus Stevens creating art inside a museum dedicated to his legacy made the moment even more special.

And wow, did you show up. ❤️ The line stretched around the block, and for many of you, Print Crawl offered a first glimpse inside the Stevens & Smith Center.

We loved having you - even if we only got to show you a little of what’s here! We hope you’ll come back on a quieter day, take your time, and experience the full museum.

From Shianne uncovering Vi’s story, to Keisha finding inspiration in it years later, to hundreds of Lancastrians carrying Vi’s portrait through the streets of the city she once called home - this is what it looks like when history keeps finding new ways to be seen.