by Doug grew up in Hanover, PA and still has family there, including his mom. We’ve made many visits here over our near two decades together, but you know how it is — you never play tourist in the place where it’s easiest to do so. So while we were here on a visit, we made some time to step out and appreciate some of the town.
The Federal-style Conewago Chapel Basilica was completed in 1787 and is the oldest Roman Catholic church constructed of stone in the United States. The “oldest with qualifier” designations crack me up! The exterior is beautiful brownstone, with a different finish in the front versus the sides and back; the walls are three-feet thick! It was not open for visitors when we stopped by, so we were only able to enjoy it from the outside.
The neo-classical Warehime-Myers Mansion (1914) was built for Clinton N. Myers, co-owner of the Hanover Shoe Company. It remained in the Myers family until 1997, when William Warehime purchased it. He grew up across the street and long admired the building. Warehime donated the home to the Hanover Area Historical Society in 2007. I toured the home several years ago, but sadly, they don’t allow interior pictures.
The home is the “fraternal twin” to the Sheppard Mansion a few blocks away. That home was owned by Harper D. Sheppard, who co-owed the Hanover Shoe Company with Myers. Both homes have a bowling alley in the basement, but it’s the Sheppard Mansion with a claim to cinematic fame: a scene from Girl Interrupted (Angelina Jolie & Winona Ryder) was filmed in their bowling alley.
The Hanover Shoe Company owned by the above-mentioned Myers and Sheppard was once a very successful shoe company. Started in 1899, they had 61 stores just 15 years later. Clarks purchased the company in the 1970s, and an absolutely awesome outlet store remains downtown.
In addition to running tours at the Warehime-Myers Mansion, the Hanover Area Historical Society has a small museum in the mansion’s former carriage house. They also run periodic tours of the 1783 Georgian-style Neas House, which has such a limited tour schedule we were not able to see inside in spite of being here for nearly four weeks.
Beyond funding many civic ventures (hospital, newspaper, public waterworks, athletic field, and more), Myer & Sheppard founded Hanover Shoe Farms in the early 1900s. It is now a world-class breeding establishment, producing a number of world champion harness racing horses. The farm today is 2,400 acres and houses 9 stallions, over 300 yearlings, and more than 500 broodmares. Unfortunately COVID shut down their tours, and their website they are now “permanently” closed to the public.
When we were in town for two months last year, we drove by these enclosures several times a week on our way to visit Doug’s step-dad Frank, who was in a care facility in Gettysburg. I’d often think I should stop for photos of these beautiful horses but there’s really nowhere to pull over. On this trip Doug dropped me off and came back to pick me up; however, it was so incredibly bright out I could barely see the horses and realized I should have brought my real camera along, so I’m not at all satisfied with this attempt. You’ll just need to trust me that it’s a really lovely scene, especially at sunset.
I figured I’d better try Revonah pretzels, since the name is Hanover spelled backwards and October is National Pretzel Month. The company has been making pretzels since 1935, using a family sourdough recipe. They are still made by hand and baked in a hearth brick and stone oven. The store is tucked down an alley and barely qualifies as a shop, but the pretzel sticks and large pretzel were absolutely delicious!
As previously mentioned (see our tour of Utz), Hanover is known as Snacktown. The other big snack producer in town is Snyder’s of Hanover. Sadly, they are no longer doing factory tours, but that didn’t stop us from buying a ridiculous number of items in their factory store.
Snyder’s specializes in German traditional products, and has been doing so since 1909, when Harry Warehime started his Olde Tyme Pretzels bakery in town (and yes, the Warehime mentioned above is a descendant of this guy!). In 1924 he joined forces with the Snyders, who were selling potato chips. Over the years there have been a number of spin-offs and reorgs, including a merged with Utz blocked by the UTC, but as of 2017 they are a subsidiary of Campbell Soup.
