Category: Other News and Events

The Parks Alliance’s ParkTours program features hikes and walks to magical and often unseen places in Philadelphia’s parks and surrounding countryside.  These evening, half-day and full-day adventures convey the history, power and value of our open space and the need to preserve and protect it. Parks Alliance founder and Board President Bob Thomas and local…

The Chester County Board of Commissioners through the Chester County Planning Commission; the Chester County Historical Society; Westtown Township; the Chester County Historic Preservation Network; and the Chester County Conference and Visitors Bureau announce the 24th summer of sharing Chester County’s heritage during the annual Town Tours & Village Walks. Town Tours & Village Walks…

The Designation Committee of the Philadelphia Historical Commission has called for recommendations concerning the creation of a new industrial heritage district in Nicetown/Lower Germantown. Kim Broadbent who wrote the nomination, gave our chapter a tour back in 2013. She has written a terrific, in depth nomination of the area and its industries. It can be…

One of the World’s Largest Steam Locomotives Is About to Make a Triumphant Return Now, six decades after the last Big Boy was taken off the rails, the Union Pacific is rebuilding one of the famous locomotives in honor of the upcoming sesquicentennial celebration of the first Transcontinental Railroad. It’s a project so ambitious that…

This piece seemed an appropriate follow-up to the post on Edison’s concrete houses. In The Netherlands, a company called Van Wijnen is working with the city of Eindhoven to build the world’s first community of 3D-printed houses. The planned community will have five houses, all printed with concrete. Each subsequent house will build on the…

This Saturday several OE members will be taking the Cement in the Lehigh Valley tour. The Intermountain Concrete Specialties website features information on Edison’s cement products that might be of interest to our group. “Most people know Thomas Edison for the light bulb, but did you know the famous inventor also held 49 cement patents?…

  The Chapter is looking into a visit to a local mill operating the technology devised by our namesake, Oliver Evans. Also members might be interested in a visit to this farm and mill complex recently opened after restoration to a working mill by volunteers. Now the building will be able to function as a…

Here is link to an article in the New Yorker highlighting the work of a dedicated individual, Philip Ashforth Coppola, who has taken on the mission of recording the 472 subway stations in New York City. https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/05/07/sketching-the-mta-with-a-subway-archeologist His work is currently featured at the New York Transit Museum. http://www.nytransitmuseum.org/program/onetrackmind/ Selections of his drawings have been published…

On May 10th from 7-9pm at Greenbank Mills & Philips Farm, join us as we get to the grist of this amazing and remarkable man, born not far from our historic mill. Known primarily for the grist milling system that caught the eyes of both George Washington and Thomas Jefferson, Oliver Evans was a mind…

Sunday, April 29th at 2pm One of the best ways to learn how something works is to see a functioning model of it.  This month’s How It Works tour will show visitors how stationary steam engines work by operating a series of model steam engines using compressed air.  Many depict engines that rarely survived in…