The Industrialization of Carlisle 1750-1920 Volume 2 – Carlisle’s West End

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This volume concludes my study of industrialization in Carlisle up to WWI, or roughly 1920. A lot changed after the war, and it provides a convenient ending point. The post-war period marked the beginning of the seismic shift to the automobile, and sweeping changes not only in Carlisle, but in the nation. To this point Carlisle remained a rather small town and, for the most part, industries located on the edges of the town that were not developed.
There was limited industry in the southwest section of the town. In the northwest, the main area of industrial development was owned by the Carlisle Land and Improvement Company along Factory Street, between B and D streets. The Carlisle Land and Improvement Company only existed for four years – from 1890 to 1894, at which time it was dissolved. While the company was short-lived their impact on the town was lasting. By 1897, a trolley line was built out West Street to Cave Hill. This helped shorten the trip into town, and seems to have spurred more residential construction in the area. It wasn’t until 1911, after the new ward was created that a “local” fire company formed. As the reader will see it was sorely needed, as major fires were frequent.
By the start of WWI, two out of town industries relocated here; C. H. Masland and Sons and Tire and Rubber. Both eventually dominated the town industrially, and Tire and Rubber gradually absorbed all the old factories along Factory Street. Today several of the buildings survive, albeit converted to residential occupancies.
Perhaps in the future another historian can chronicle the industries of Carlisle in the century after 1920. There is not much left now; most of what exists is on land annexed from South Middletown Township in the 1970s, not part of the town in its industrial heyday.

by Randy Watts, 2022
ISBN 418740009525 $39.95 124 pages, index and endnotes. Spiral Bound

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