Ralph E. Burdick Mansion
1001 W. Main Street
photo credit: R.C. Gleason Collection
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R.E. Burdick served as treasurer of Hamlin Bank.
He also was a photographer who shot some of the photos used in this site.
photo credit: R.C. Gleason Collection
Smethport
Written Up.
Source believed to be
McKean County Democrat
1904
I lately spent several days at Smethport, the county seat of McKean
county, Pa., finding it in its isolated situation very interesting. It
is not quite so badly off as the town Artemus Ward wrote of which had only
a plank road running into it twice a week, but a fellow who wants to get
into or out of Smethport on Sunday will find his was beset with difficulties.
He can, however, hire a rig, walk or buy an automobile. Most residents
do the latter. I am told it is one of the wealthiest towns of its
class in the country and i believe it, as the people can't get out to spend
their money, but they do spend a lot on automobiles; almost every man in
Smethport has one and pedestrians have to step lively. All makes
are there from big steamers to little runabouts. The big machines
predominate and it is novel to see the uses they are put to. I was
walking one evening when a big auto drew up to the curb and the driver
asked up to ride as he was going up to the house. It was the owner
of a grocery and bakery and my companion sat with the driver while i rode
in the rear seats with green onions, sacks of salt and sugar, bunches of
pie plant and assorted breakfast foods.
Smethport has more children, large and small, to the acre than any city I ever
was in. It would have gladdened the heart of Roosevelt to have seen the
parade on Memorial Day with its almost endless line of bright-faced school children. I
think the picture ( printed on page seven) will bear me out in the assertion
that there are plenty of handsome girls and brave youths in this Pennsylvania
town. The writer went to Pennsylvania to visit his daughter and incidentally
to visit the trout streams of that section. A man who catches and keeps
trout less than six inches long is liable to a fine of $10 or ten days in the
county jail. There is a man in Smethport jail now doing al little stunt
of 550 days for having undersized trout in his possession and if I hadn't been
conscientious and active in the throwing back process I might have been his
team-mate. After fishing two days, getting lost ont he wild streams, falling
in Robbins brook in eighteen inches of water and hacing to foot it six miles
in wet cloths after dark in a cold rain with a net result of four trout of legal
length, I was almost indignant when I found that I could take a can of worms,
go down the street a few rods from the house and there under the mill dam within
100 yards from Main street, catch more and bigger trout than I got.
Stella Larson SMETHPORT - Stella
M. Larson, 86, formerly of West Main Street, died Friday in Sena-Kean
Manor. |
R. E. Burdick Residence 2006
Photo Credit: Seth Queen 2006