Article - Looking For Harrisburg: An Imaginary Travelogue

Looking For Harrisburg: An Imaginary Travelogue
by William I. Lengeman III
(Originally published in Harrisburg Magazine, May 1996)

Do you know Harrisburg pretty well? Did you know that it was a thriving gold mining town in the early 1900s? Did you know that just outside of town Indians massacred a group of settlers heading west in 1849? Have you ever admired the historic landmark, the Harrisburg Covered Bridge. Do you remember the terrible flood in 1937 when the Ohio River spilled over it's banks, leaving thousands homeless?

Are you confused yet?

It might clear things up if I explain that Harrisburg, California was once a gold mining town. The Indian massacre took place just outside of Harrisburg, Arizona. The covered bridge is located in Harrisburg, Tennessee and the flood threatened Harrisburg, Illinois.

In other words, we are not alone. If you thought our city was uniquely endowed with the name Harrisburg, then think again. We have or have had 34 sister cities in 24 states...36, if you count Harrisburg Junction, Utah and Harrisburg Estates, North Carolina. And don't forget Harrisburg, Ontario, a small town in the southeast corner of the Canadian province, about 100 miles west of Niagara Falls.

Harrisburgs span the country from New York down to Florida, over to Texas and all the way out to California and Oregon. Several states have more than one. Ohio and New York take the prize with three each. Alabama, Georgia, Indiana, New Mexico, Texas and Utah were or are all home to two Harrisburgs each.

For most of our namesakes, the term city is a bit grandiose. Harrisburg, Pennsylvania is by far the most populous of the bunch, boasting 54,238 residents, as of 1994. The largest of the others is Harrisburg, Illinois, with a population of 9,318. Harrisburg, Indiana's population (40) wouldn't even fill four football teams. Tennessee and Nebraska are neck and neck with 60 people each.

Today many Harrisburgs are little more than memories and debris and a few lines in a history book. Some once existed as railroad stations or towns and have since disappeared. Some are so obscure that they don't even appear today on any but the most detailed maps.

Perhaps you already know the origin of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. The area was settled as far back as 1718 by John Harris, a settler from Yorkshire, England. Harris's son, also named John, coined the name Harris's Ferry in 1753. In 1785 Harrisburg became the seat of the newly created Dauphin county.

If it weren't for Harris's stubbornness the name Harrisburg might never have survived. Our readers might be perusing their copies of Louisbourg Magazine instead. In 1785 the Executive Council of Pennsylvania decreed that the newly laid out town should be called Louisbourg, after the French King Louis XVI. Harris bristled, refusing to sell any land in the town unless the name Harrisburg was kept. He won, of course, and Louisbourg soon became a historical footnote.

What about the other Harrisburgs? How did we wind up with a nation crammed full of them? Partly because Harris is such a common name, the nation's 17th most common, according to a 1964 study done by the Social Security Administration. Many families named Harris founded communities to which they lent their names. For example, Harrisburg, Arkansas was named for it's founder, William Harris. In Lewis County, New York, Harrisburg was named for Richard Harrison, an early settler.

Other Harrisburgs trace their lineage directly back to our city. As William Russ noted in a 1949 article in Pennsylvania History magazine, "geographic names which show Pennsylvania influence are scattered far and wide over the country." Serving as a staging ground for immigrants to the U.S. who soon moved south or west, Pennsylvania often found it's names carried along by homesick settlers. Harrisburg in Nebraska, Oregon and Stark County, Ohio are among those named for Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.

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My search for Harrisburg began almost by accident on one very boring afternoon. I was wasting time fiddling around with a zip code program on my computer, my version of the office water cooler. Typing in Harrisburg, I was surprised to find eight other listings besides Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.

I was fascinated. What were these places like? How did they get their names? Did they share anything with us besides a name? I was hooked and immediately began the tedious process of poring over maps, atlases and reference books and history, trying to find out about our sister cities.

As I pored, I began to uncover more Harrisburgs. A skim through the "AAA Road Atlas" turned up more than 20. What had started as an interesting diversion was quickly turning into a major project. I thought that was the extent of it, but after a trip to the State Library the grand total stood at 37 and I won't be surprised if more turn up along the way.

My digging also led to a 1990 article in American Heritage magazine by acclaimed crime novelist Lawrence Block. He described a similar quest that he undertook with his home town of Buffalo, New York and it's many namesakes. Traveling around the country with his wife, he visited Buffalo, Buffalo Gap, Buffalo Valley and so on. Block became obsessed with the pursuit, which eventually stretched out over a period of several years and found him visiting 51 Buffalos out of a total of at least 75.

I knew my quest would have to be a scale model of Block's. My meager travel budget might get me as far as Lancaster and I knew that the magazine couldn't pick up the tab for such a grand North American jaunt. My humble journey would not take place on our nation's jumble of highways and byways. Instead it would be accomplished through another equally vast gridwork, the tangle of fiber optics and copper wire that once belonged to Ma Bell.

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The journey started in the South. Harrisburg, North Carolina is a small community, located at the southern tip of Concord, about 15 miles northeast of Charlotte. It only incorporated as a town in 1973, but was settled as far back as 1732 by Scotch Irish immigrants who flowed into the region for the next three decades.

Though not named after our city, Harrisburg claims to share a connection. According to a local historian, six brothers named Harris immigrated to Pennsylvania in the early 1700s. Five moved south to North Carolina, while brother John stayed in Pennsylvania and founded what would become Harrisburg. Though the facts to support this claim don't completely mesh, it's an intriguing possibility nonetheless.

When the Southern Railway ran it's main line through the town in the 1850s it purchased land from a Harris descendant and the town was christened Harris Depot. In 1874 the post office changed it's name to Harrisburg. When Route 49 was built in 1923 the town's center and business district shifted there and by 1933 Harris Depot shut down.

Harrisburg, North Carolina was once predominantly a farming community. Today it is also a center for some light industry and is a relative whopper by Harrisburg standards, boasting a population of 1,625. Nearby Harrisburg Estates is home to 90 people. Though it's small, Mayor Carl Parmer recently noted that intimacy is it's appeal. "The atmosphere of a small town is what people like about Harrisburg...knowing your neighbors better."

The town proudly boasts it's own homegrown celebrity. San Diego Chargers running back Natrone Means was born and raised there and is honored every year with Natrone Means Day, a charity event.

Harrisburg, Virginia is not much to look at, according to the man I spoke to at the Charlotte County Office. Located about six miles from the nearest town, he said that "it's just a little crossroads in the middle of nowhere" and consists of exactly one building, a general store.

Heading into the Deep South I came to Harrisburg, Alabama, which sits along Route 5, about 60 miles south of Birmingham. Situated at the northern edge of Talladega National Forest, the small rural community doesn't appear on most maps. It's 150 residents get their mail courtesy of the post office at Brent, about seven miles to the north.

I contacted Flo Franklin, the head librarian at the Brent/Centerville Public Library. Coincidentally, it turned out that she lives in Harrisburg. She said the community used to be a town many years ago. Today all that's left are a few houses and an old, abandoned schoolhouse where her grandmother used to teach. "It used to be a larger place," Flo said. "But now it's one of those places where you just pass through."

Heading northeast you'll eventually run across Pell City, a town of 6,616 in St. Clair County, about 35 miles east of Birmingham. Danny Stewart, at the Pell City Library, said that Harrisburg is just a name for a mostly black community in Pell City. He said the area has never been incorporated and can't recall seeing the origin of the name mentioned in any local history books. About 30 miles north of Pell City is Altoona, Alabama. Pine Grove and Lebanon lie about 40 miles to the east and northeast, respectively.

Over next door I found out from the local library (notice a trend?) that Harrisburg, Georgia is also part of a larger town. Milledgeville, the Baldwin County seat, is located north of Scottsboro and 30 miles northeast of Macon. Harrisburg is a small community within it's boundaries.

In search of Georgia's other Harrisburg I called the Walker County Office in the northwestern part of Georgia. Bobbie Wiley said she knew of a Harrisburg Road that runs through some town I never heard off. I asked her to spell it. She laughed. Her thick Southern drawl had rendered the name "La Fayette" completely unintelligible to my Yankee ears.

I heard Bobbie engaged in some spirited consultation in the background. She came back and informed me that one of her colleagues knew of a Harrisburg, a very small community on the county line. "If you blink your eyes, you might miss it."

Martha Tucker at the Chattanooga County office confirms this. I left and headed east, missing the chance to investigate Marietta and Lebanon, about 60 miles to the southeast.

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Over in the Sunshine State, the Harrisburg search was not so easy. Mary Booher, librarian at Glades Public Library in Moore Haven, said she never heard of it in the eight years that she had lived there. She graciously consented to do some searching and found that it was, as best as she could tell, a small clump of railway stops on Route 27 near Moore Haven in the south-central part of the state. Over at the county clerk's office Sandra Brown recognized it as the name of an old settlement. "I know that there was a place called Harrisburg, but it's not called that anymore."

Taking John Babsone Lane Soule's advice to "go west, young man," I swung over to the Lone Star State. At the Jasper County Office, not far from the Louisiana border, they told me that the small community of Harrisburg, Texas (pop. 438) was named Dryburg at one time. The name was later changed due to the influence of a family named Harris that lived there.

The other Harrisburg, Texas is part of Houston today and has loose ties to Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. According to the Handbook of Texas the town was named Harrisburg in 1826 in honor of John Richardson Harris, the great grandson of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania's founder. In 1836, Harrisburg was burned by the Mexican army under Santa Anna's command. Ninety years later it was formally annexed into Houston.

Over in New Mexico, Cibola County Clerk George Marquez was intrigued when I mentioned the name Harrisburg. "I've heard that name before."

After mulling it over for a moment, it finally came to him. "I think you're talking about a little place on the reservation."

Referring to Laguna Reservation, Marquez noted that Harrisburg lies near Cleveland and New York, explaining that Native Americans on the reservation often chose already well known place names when naming their communities. I wasn't so lucky with New Mexico's other Harrisburg, supposedly located in nearby Valencia County, near Albuquerque. I moved on.

Making my way across the hot, dry southwest I came to Harrisburg, Arizona, located in the southwestern part of the state, about 110 miles west of Phoenix. It's hard to be exactly sure where it was since it no longer exists. Evidence indicates that it was in the Harcuvar Mountains of La Paz County just to the north of what is today the Kofa National Wildlife Refuge. Today the region is home to numerous government facilities, including the U.S. Army's Yuma Proving Ground.

Harrisburg, Arizona was established in 1886 by Captain Charles Harris, a Canadian who had served with the North in the Civil War. It started as an ore refinery with the help of Arizona's Governor, Frederick Tritle. Harris built his town on the site of Centennial, an old stagecoach station. The area had been witness to an Indian massacre of emigrants to California in 1849. The victims are buried in the Harrisburg Cemetery, about three miles west of Salome. It's not certain when Harrisburg ceased to exist, but records indicate that the post office shut down in 1906, after 20 years.

Most likely Harrisburg, Arizona is nothing more than a ghost town today, if anything exists at all. A woman from the Yuma County Historical Society speculated that there still may be a few "old timers" living up in the hills.

Of all the little lost Harrisburgs and those that are Harrisburg no more, California's probably has the most colorful history. Located in the Panamint Mountains in Death Valley National Park, it once was a small, bustling mining town.

Fortunately for me, I connected with Dale Housley, a park ranger, who, by a stroke of luck, is a walking textbook of Harrisburg lore. He told me that Harrisburg almost came to be called Harrisberry, for the colorful duo who founded the town, Frank "Shorty" Harris and "French" Pete Aguereberry, a French speaking Basque.

When "French" Pete discovered an outcropping of gold near Harrisburg in the early 1900s, his partner Shorty did not believe him. The skeptical old timer was nearly blind and "French" Pete had a hard time convincing him that the ore he had found was gold. After Shorty was convinced he promptly went to the nearest town, got drunk and blabbed his secret to anyone willing to lend an ear. By the time he got back to the site he found about 200 fortune hungry miners already gathered there.

Housley said that "French" Pete's house is still standing near the Eureka Mine on the outskirts of what was once the town. Open to visitors it's still in good condition and contains many of the original furnishings and the old prospector's equipment.

"French" Pete was later the subject of a book, "Pete Aguereberry: Death Valley Prospector." Though you won't find Harrisburg on any maps today, you will find a 6,433 foot mountain, Aguereberry Point, named for Pete.

Located in the western part of the state, Harrisburg, Oregon is a boom town, if population figures are any indication. Since 1960 when it was home to 939 residents the town has more than doubled it's population to 1,939.

Previously named Prairie Precinct and then Thurston, the town is described in an old history book as being a "typical river town with old buildings and traditions of the steamboat era." The same book declares that the town was "presumably it was named for Harrisburg, Pennsylvania." Judging from the presence of Lebanon just to the northeast I'd say that's a fair assumption.

As I forged on to Idaho I was intrigued by the woman at the Idaho County Office who told me that Harrisburg, Idaho is a ghost town in Lemhi County, a mountainous part of the state just south of Hell's Half Acre Mountains. I hurriedly contacted the Lemhi County office. The woman there was quite adamantly opposed to this revelation. "There's never been anything as far as I know. I've lived here all my life, so I think I should know."

Thus rebuked, I humbly shuffled off to my next stop, hat in hand, eyes cast down, though I vowed to come back and investigate further.

About a week later I took up the Idaho search again with a call the Idaho Free Press and Shopper in Idaho County. It was in vain. Linda Mort, a recent transplant from Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, checked with her co workers and only came up with Harris Ridge. "There's no one here who remembers a town called Harrisburg."

Temporarily daunted, I gave up on Idaho for the time and headed south to Utah. In my search for Harrisburg Junction, I found a reference in a old guidebook. It described it as "a service station standing sentinel over a fenced yard filled with oddly shaped rocks." Nearby are various landmarks named Harrisburg, including Harrisburg Bench, Canyon, Creek, Dome, Flats, and Gap.

Washington County commissioner Gayle Aldred tells me that Harrisburg is a mobile home community just north of Quail in the southwest corner of Utah. He says the three phase development project has already built on the east side of Route 15. The next phase will develop to the west of the road, where plans are to preserve many of the historical pioneer buildings located there. Aldred explains that Harrisburg and Harrisburg Junction are essentially the same and estimates that population there is "a coupla hundred."

Though a woman at town hall promised to send me info on the town of Harrisburg, South Dakota, it doesn't arrive by press time. All I've been able to ascertain is that it's in Lincoln County in the southeast corner of the state near Sioux Falls. It has a population of 727, it's area code is 605, it's zip code is 57032, and elevation is 1,428 feet. Gettysburg and (of course) Lebanon are both located nearby and the town was named for it's first postmaster in 1873.

To look at the map you would assume that the next Harrisburg, over in Nebraska, is a lonely, desolate place. The small town (pop. 60), located about two hours northeast of Denver, Colorado, is the seat of Banner County. According to most maps, it's also the only town in Banner County, where 800 people are shoehorned into about 750 square miles of land.

Banner County Clerk Sharon Sandburg confirms that Harrisburg is no bustling metropolis, consisting of little more than a school, courthouse, bank, agricultural office and a scattering of homes, though she stops short of calling it lonely or desolate.

Harrisburg, Nebraska was named by a settler from Pennsylvania, after Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. It's not kind of place that draws migrating hordes these days, but by the same token, nobody seems to be in a particular rush to leave. Harrisburg's population was 62 in the 1930s. Today it is 60.

William Russ noted that "the pioneers of the West often enjoyed naming their prairie settlements after a town they fondly remembered in Pennsylvania." Nebraska is a sterling example of this practice. Counties there include Adams, Butler, Franklin, Jefferson, Lancaster, Washington, York. Towns include Lemoyne, Paxton, Keystone, Lebanon, Hershey and York.

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Moving east to Iowa, I realize how much my once lofty command of geography has deteriorated when I spend an inordinate amount of time just trying to find it on the map. At the Van Buren County office they only knew of a Harrisburg Township and a Harrisburg Church near Bentonsport. Jackie at Bonaparte Town Hall knew of Harrisburg Church but not Harrisburg, the town.

A call to Connie Meek, the Bonaparte City Clerk hits paydirt...sort of. There's not much to tell about Harrisburg, Iowa, now officially defunct. Connie said the only thing left there is the aforementioned church and a few houses in a small area a few miles north of Bonaparte. I check the area on my map. I can't find anything but an h less Pittsburg, another Lebanon and even a Birmingham that apparently followed me from Alabama.

I headed south again. Harrisburg, Missouri's good natured postmaster, Jerry Niemeier, had a good laugh when I told him why I was calling and asked if the town has a library or newspaper that I could contact. "You must not know much about Harrisburg."

Niemeier described the tiny 125 year old town, with a population of 169, as a "bedroom community of Columbia." About 100 miles north of Harrisburg, near the Iowa border, lies Lancaster, Missouri. Yet another Lebanon is about the same distance to the south.

The nation's third largest Harrisburg is found in northeastern Arkansas, just 54 miles southeast of Memphis, Tennessee. The town, named for it's founder William Harris, proudly notes that in 1830 it was listed as one of Arkansas's 18 most prominent towns. It became the Poinsett County seat in 1856 and was incorporated in 1883. Today 1,943 people live in Harrisburg, where farming of rice, beans, corn, wheat, cotton and fish as well as some light industry, make up the town's economic base.

Over in south-central Oklahoma, Stephens County Clerk Marilyn Fennel got out her "plat book," in response to my inquiries. For the uninitiated, like myself, this is a book that shows how towns and counties are laid out. According to page 538, a town patent for Harrisburg was taken out on July 28, 1908, though the town had been laid out six years earlier.

Formerly Chickasaw Nation territory, Harrisburg was settled by members of the Choctaw and Chickasaw nations. Acting on their behalf, John T. Williams purchased the land the town was built on for the whopping sum of $22.50. Today the town no longer exists.

Moving back east I hit Tennessee. Just a few miles from Dolly Parton's theme park, Dollywood, and nearby Pine Grove, is Harrisburg, Tennessee, a small community in Sevier County in the eastern part of the state.

Though the 50 acres that became Harrisburg were purchased in 1824 by Thomas Hill, no one seems to know for sure how the town got it's name. Speculation exists that the Alabama born merchant, Henry Harris established the post office in his store in 1859.

In 1860, 152 households got their mail at Harrisburg and the town was later described as the second most active business center in the county. By 1915 a new road from nearby Sevierville to Newport had bypassed the community by about a quarter of a mile and this status changed quickly and dramatically. Businesses began to fail and the town's fortunes fell. Today even the post office is gone and the community's 60 residents get their mail at nearby Sevierville.

Second only to Harrisburg, Pennsylvania in population, a veritable throng of 9,318 chokes the streets of Harrisburg, Illinois, Saline County's seat. It's the only Harrisburg other than our own large enough to be able to support a daily newspaper, The Daily Register.

The town is named for it's first settler, a sawmill proprietor named James Harris. According to the Register, coal mining is more a way of life than just a source of jobs in the community and has been since John Norman started the first mine in the area in 1856. Mines employed as many as 7,000 people countywide during peak years at the beginning of the century.

Like it's Pennsylvania namesake, Harrisburg, Illinois was hit hard by a flood. In January 1937, thirty five years before Agnes hit Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, three died and thousands were left homeless in the Harrisburg, Illinois area after 15 inches of rain sent the Ohio River spilling over it's banks and into the surrounding valley.

Harrisburg, Indiana sits between Richmond and Philadelphia, about 50 miles east of Indianapolis. A man at the Connersville News Examiner office told me that it's just a very small community, made up of about 10 families. He described it as a typical rural Indiana farm community that, at it's peak, had about 30 families. Official population today is 40.

Brownsburg, Indiana, just west of Indianapolis, started life as Harrisburg when William Harris laid out the town in 1835. It was later renamed Brownsburg for James Brown (not that one), an earlier settler.

Heading back toward home I came to Harrisburg, Ohio, or at least one of them. At the Gallia County Office, Karen Sprague gave me the lowdown. Another lucky coincidence here, Karen grew up in Harrisburg. "It's not a town or a city. It's not even a village. It's just an unincorporated area. It's like a little subdivision. A lot of the lots have been converted to acreage."

Looking for it on the county map, Karen found that it was no longer listed, though she did turn up a Harrisburg Road and Harrisburg Street. I called Harold Thompson at the Gallia County Historical Society. "I know Harrisburg but I can't place it right quick," he mused.

Harold's memory kicked in, but he couldn't offer much more. He recalled a small community near Route 554 next to Bidwell. Harrisburg Bridge, a covered bridge, used to span Raccoon Creek. Today there's nothing there except for a few houses and trailers.

My preliminary research had uncovered a few facts about Harrisburg, Ohio, located in Stark County, just southeast of Akron. With a population of 150, it got it's mail at nearby Louisville. Palmyra was about 17 miles to the northeast and the town was laid out in 1827 by Jacob Matthias, who named it for Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.

A familiar refrain greeted me when I tried to find out more. "I've lived here all my life and I've never heard of it," claimed the reference librarian at the Stark County District Library in Massillon.

She looked through several local histories of Stark County and was stumped. An informal survey of fellow employees came up dry. Perhaps I had traveled too far and my Harrisburg addled brain needed rest. I decided not to pursue this particular Harrisburg anymore. I moved on.

Ohio's third Harrisburg is located just southeast of Columbus and to the west of Lancaster. On the border of Franklin and Pickaway counties, it was established in 1836 by Joseph Chenoweth, a settler from Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. Today it is home to 340 people.

Up in Cattaraugus County, where one of New York's three Harrisburgs is rumored to exist, the going was again tough. A woman at the county's tourism office sang a familiar tune, claiming to have lived there all her life without ever having heard of it. She got the county map and was surprised to find it listed, just a few miles over the border from Bradford, Pennsylvania. At the county historian's office they didn't offer much more help. One woman thought it might have once been a "crossroads community." I moved on. Time's a wastin'. So many Harrisburgs and only one lifetime.

In Lewis County, just west of New York's Adirondack Mountains, I talked to Madeline Mosher Bernat. She has lived in Harrisburg for all of her life "except for one year," has served as town clerk for the last 40 years and is also the town historian. Madeline sent me her impressive 295 page book, "The Town of Harrisburg: A History." I now have more detailed info about the town than I could ever hope to impart in this article.

For example, a tale related by George Alexander Sr. tells of a Harrisburg resident who was struck by lightning. His doctor ordered him to be buried up to his shoulders for three or four days in order to draw out the electricity. It is believed that he recovered.

Madeline said that the small community (pop. 425), which was founded in 1803 and named for Richard Harrison, an early settler, is mostly a farming town. I'm not one to make waves so I don't mention that the practice of farming people is just not done in the civilized world.

New York's third Harrisburg, the final one of this long adventure, lies in a remote area in the southern part of the Adirondacks. Janet, at the Warren County Office, told me that it's a part of Stony Creek, the only town for miles around. My map indicates that Harrisburg's about seven miles away from Stony Creek, with which it shares a zip code.

Janet Walters at the Stony Creek Inn informed me that Harrisburg doesn't really exist anymore, though it still appears on some maps. She said today all that's left of it is a camping area near Harrisburg Lake, about 10 miles from Stony Creek.

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Now am I weary. I have traveled (sort of) all over this great land of ours in search of the often elusive Harrisburg. I never really found out much about Harrisburg, South Dakota, Michigan, Florida, Idaho, Ontario or New Mexico's second Harrisburg. Maybe someday I will, but now I must shake the telephone dust from my hair and rest my tired ear.

As I recuperate from my journey, I look through my stack of research materials. My heart can't help racing as I find a few other intriguing possibilities that I'd overlooked. The Harrisburg Baptist Church in Tupelo, Mississippi. Harrisburg Building in Juneau, Alaska. Harrisburg, Inc. in New Iberia, Louisiana. Harrisburg Inn in Wisconsin. Could it be that there are yet more Harrisburgs?

With a glimmer of hope that one day I'll come back and answer that question, I reluctantly pack my notes away and type these final words. After all, I am only one man in a world of many Harrisburgs.

Copyright 2007, William I. Lengeman III