Photos by: Phil Grout
Snacks and harness racing horses are Hanover, Pennsylvania’s major claims to fame. And early on, Thomas Jefferson was a frequent guest at a popular Hanover inn in 1776 when he was commuting between Monticello and Philadelphia.
One can only speculate about the “course of human events” if Jefferson had penned the Declaration of Independence while snacking on Utz potato chips or Snyder pretzels, for which Hanover became known some 150 years later.
Several years after Jefferson, President George Washington passed through Hanover. He noted it was “a very pretty village with a good number of brick houses and mechanics in it.”
Today the greater Hanover area is home to about 55,000 residents. Within the city limits, the 2000 census counted 14,535 people.
The town was first settled by people of German descent about 1730 in an area of dense hardwood forests and hickory swamps; thus its initial name of “Hickorytown.” The first major industry was the Mary Ann Furnace: the first blast furnace west of the Susquehanna River. Ore from the Pigeon Hills, north of town, was smelted there to produce cannons and cannon balls for the Continental Army During the Revolutionary War.
And some speculate that the Battle of Hanover during the Civil War led to the Union victory at Gettysburg which immediately followed.
Confederate General J.E.B. Stuart was “disoriented” during his march from Westminster, thinking that the major battle would take place in Carlisle. Stuart’s rout in Hanover contributed to his delay in finally reaching Gettysburg a day late. Union forces had already taken the high ground.
Today, Hanover is ideally situated along major commercial corridors 54 miles north Of Baltimore, 15 miles east of Gettysburg and 19 miles southwest of York. Although Hanover has flourished in manufacturing and agriculture, the city has held onto its German roots (visible in the architecture surrounding the town square), preserving its rich heritage and quaint, small-town charm.
In the past, Hanover’s industries included cigar manufacturing, gloves, silks, flavines (a key ingredient for antiseptics), flour, water wheels, shoes, machine shop products, furniture, wire cloth and ironstone grinders. And still surrounded by a fertile agricultural region, the town is the home of Hanover Brands canned and frozen vegetables.
But the brand probably most synonymous with the town is Hanover Shoes, an industry that indirectly led to the world famous harness racing breeding industry at Hanover Shoe Farms. Dating back to the 1920s, Hanover-bred horses have earned about $400 million, and the offspring of its stallions total nearly $1 billion.
In 1899, Harper D. Sheppard and Clinton N. Myers bought a struggling shoe company and changed the name to Hanover Shoe. (Shoes are no longer manufactured in the large factory along Carlisle St., but the company still sells its quality footwear online and in stores throughout the region.)
The partners worked at the Hanover factory until noon on Saturdays, then traveled the 20 miles to work in the company’s one retail store in York. They needed to get to York as quickly as possible. Fast horses were a necessity. Sheppard and Myers ultimately developed a stable of fine horses and even entered some of them in races at local fairs.
The single stable has grown to 27 farms, encompasses 3,000 acres and houses 12,000 horses in 40 barns, all painted yellow. The farms employ more than 100 workers.
