Williams Grove, located in Monroe Township, Cumberland County is a place that is very interesting to me. Geographically it is located in the rich Cumberland Valley just a short distance from the end of the Blue Ridge Mountains at Dillsburg. It is a natural travel hub. Lisburn Road connects the hill regions to the east with the farms of the Carlisle and Mechanicsburg areas. Residents on the west side of the Blue Ridge at Mount Holly and the east side of the Blue Ridge at Dillsburg could easily access Williams Grove. So could folks coming down from the Appalachians at places like Sterrets Gap and from the northern gap at Summerdale. Some of the most prime land in our area is located in the triangle formed by Williams Grove, Carlisle and Mechanicsburg.
The Williams family owned a farm at a bend in the Yellow Breeches Creek. In 1850 they began hosting picnics along the creek. The picnic area became locally popular and people began building cottages for summer visits. A Merry Go Round was installed for the kids.
The Dillsburg-Mechanicsburg Railroad was completed and many more local people had easy access to the park. Because of the popularity, nice facilities and a good rail link, the Grangers held a successful fair there in 1872. After that the picnic ground was developed into a Fairground. By 1887 there was a 2,000 seat auditorium, camping areas, cottages, exhibition halls and a hotel. The fairgrounds could attract as many as 30,000 people per day. The annual Grangers picnic seemed to be the biggest event. A state historical marker at the site indicates that as many as 90,000 people attended these picnics. The Grangers held their picnics here through the 1890's, but started to decline as an organization.
The fairgrounds went downhill through World War I and was sold several times, finally purchased by the Richwine family in 1924. They turned it into an amusement park which survived through the depression and did well until World War II. In 1939 they expanded the operation by building Williams Grove Speedway. After the war Hershey Park became a big competitor and the park declined. In the 1950's a group of steam engine enthusiasts started up the Grangers Picnic again, which revived the park until Morgan Hughes bought the park and the speedway for $1.3 million in 1971. The park was flooded by Hurricane Agnes in 1972 and hit by a tornado in the 1980's, but survived until closing in 2005. Also, in 2005 the Hughes family sold a large parcel of land to the Grangers Picnic organization that has been holding their picnic there since the 1950's. In 2006 the Grangers opened a large weekend flea market on the property and expanded their event schedule. Also in 2006 some of the rides from the park were auctioned off. Williams Grove Park continues to be open weekly as the Park Market flea market. They are located adjacent to the Grangers.
Williams Grove Speedway is a story in itself. I need to verify this story, but as I recall the Richwine family built the speedway on a farm adjacent to their amusement park in the late 1930's in anticipation of the legalization of horse racing in Pennsylvania. In the 1960's there were still rows of windows across the back of the grandstands. Some were used as ticket booths and offices, but the story is that they were all originally intended to be betting windows. The law failed to change, and in 1939 they opened as a race track for automobiles.
Link to Williams Grove history book: http://amzn.to/2llWgYJ
Because of its half mile length, grandstands and superior location it quickly became the premier race track in the area. Small local tracks like the one at the Latimore Valley Fairgrounds in York Springs fell into disrepair as the all the racers went to Williams Grove. Indeed, Williams Grove began to draw some of the best racers of the time and their entry listings and record books are a Who's Who of automobile racing history.
Between 1949 and 1959 the track hosted local racers and the Championship Car Series, the same cars and drivers that raced at Indianapolis each May. Back then the Indy cars were basically dirt track cars and the same car was used in both situations. The AAA sanctioned the Indy 500 and their races until the Lemans Disaster in 1955 when they discontinued their racing division. The owner of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, Tony Hulman, founded the United States Auto Club (USAC) in 1956 and took over the events. In what was known as auto racings darkest day for many years the Black Friday of racing happened when 3 different drivers were killed at three different tracks on the same day. William Grove Speedway was one of those tracks, they were hosting the Championship cars that day. I need to verify the date, but I believe it was in 1957.
The track still flourished into the sixties, with many Indy level drivers still competing at Williams Grove events, although the cars were more specialized now. The great race drivers still came from the dirt track ranks and large dirt tracks like Williams Grove were an industry standard. However technology changed things. In the mid sixties the Indy cars changed to a rear engine configuration while dirt track cars did not. By the 1970's more and more drivers broke into auto racings top events like the Indy 500 with little or no dirt track experience and the great dirt tracks, once talent pools for the big leagues, started to fade. But the racers wouldn't give up.
The racers were all independents, most had full time jobs or businesses, many dirt car shops were located in farmers barns and gas station garages. There was still a lot of prestige, at least locally, for racing at Williams Grove and other great tracks in our area, which include, Susquehanna Speedway, Port Royal Speedway, Selinsgrove Speedway and Lincoln Speedway in Hanover. By the mid 1980's these independent drivers, many of whom traveled from track to track looking to "take the purse" had inspired the founding of the World of Outlaws sprint car organization, which was an "official" group of traveling racers and Williams Grove was, of course, a premier place for them to race. Television and media picked up on the sport in the 1980's and have taken dirt track sprint car racing into the big leagues once again. Now one of a diminishing number of large dirt tracks, Williams Grove Speedway is host for the National Open for sprint cars. Many WIlliams Grove regulars compete with the World of Outlaws and other traveling racing shows. Also many aspiring racers move to this area to compete at the track weekly.
