The Quartz Crystal Industry in Cumberland County, PA

Lecture by Randy Watts. Through a series of coincidences, a janitor at Dickinson College trying to make pieces for a chess game out of petrified wood, laid the groundwork for the manufacturing of quartz crystal units in Carlisle and surrounding areas. This program will tell the story of how that came to be, and how the Carlisle area became known as the quartz crystal capital of the world for many decades. The program starts with a brief description of quartz and its use in frequency control in electronic devices, followed by an overview of how it is processed into finished crystal units. After telling the story of how the industry started locally, a brief overview of the many crystal companies will be provided. At one time nearly 2,000 people worked in local crystal plants; today there are only a few hundred jobs left.

As of now this program is scheduled to occur in person.