Chester Pike towns and their Expansion, Please check out "History Mystery" in Sunday's Delco times!!

 

The above postcard is a 2 lane view of Chester Pike about 1920 in Ridley Park. You are standing in front of today's Taylor Hospital looking east toward Prospect Park.  Leedom School would be at the top of the hill on the right. Morton Ave. is on the left. Chester Pike expanded to 4 lanes starting in 1921.

Note: a special thanks to Todd Zachery of the Williamson Trade School who took the time to identify and properly locate all my pictures and postcards of the school. Luckily many of the original buildings are still standing. I need help with another project my pictures of Elwyn School.  I have pictures and postcards of the original buildings from 100 years ago and they are gone. I was given the name of a historian but can not find him. If there is anyone out there who can help please email me at keith106@rcn.com 

"History Mystery" is be coming very popular it is now in Delco Times Sunday paper
This week postcard is of a street in St. David's a tough one!

CHESTER TIMES 

 June 23, 1924 

 BEAUTIFUL HOMES ON CHESTER PIKE 

 Ridley Park  Darby Stretch Keeping Step With Progress

          Retaining to some degree its rural beauty and at the same time leaving nothing unfinished in the way of being adequately supplied with business, civic and educational improvements, The Chester Pike end of Delaware County, comprising the area from Darby to Ridley Park has kept pace with the remarkable advance in homebuilding by other suburban communities in the county and now looms as one large concerted residential development.

          Although not among the newest of the county’s suburban territories the Ridley Park – to – Darby strip occupies a position well up front when it comes to the building of high-class homes of the most modern design and make up.  Proper sewage, lighting and modern facilities are in abundance and have played their part as a drawing card for the erection of more than a thousand homes in the area within the past few years.

          Collingdale, close to Darby, has been improved with approximately four hundred new residences in the last few years, and the amount of residential construction under way at present would indicate continued activity in home building in this section for an indefinite period.

          Ground at Clifton and Ash Avenues, Collingdale, was acquired recently as the site for a large church.  A high school is under construction at Parker and Clifton Avenues; eleven houses are under way at Woodlawn and Andrews Avenues; ten homes are being built on Lincoln Avenue north of Parker Avenue, eight dwellings are being erected at Clifton and Bartram Avenues.  These are a few of the improvements under way or in contemplation in Collingdale.

          An operation of attractive residences is rapidly being completed in Sharon Hill by George M. Dunlap Jr., and embraces some of the most artistic houses to be found anywhere in the suburbs.  The operation is immediately off Chester Pike, and is being built on the single and semi-detached plans of operative construction.  Other operations of artistic design and substantial construction are in progress and around Sharon Hill.

          In the vicinity of Collingdale and Sharon Hill, Glenolden is holding its own, in a building sense, with other sections and has in the course of construction many beautiful homes, the majority of which are of the suburban type.

          Glen-Nor Park is a development of beautiful homes between Glenolden and Norwood.  The Glen-Nor High School in this section, which was completed recently, compares favorably with institutions of a similar nature erected recently in large cities.

          Darby, the closest of these sections to Philadelphia, has also been conspicuous in the recent building boom and has underway or completed many excellent dwellings.  Darby, like Philadelphia, is doing considerable building of rowhouses, with an exceptionally pretty operation on Greenway Avenue.

          A large brick building, which will be used as a distributing station by the Supplee-Wills-Jones Milk Company is being erected at Ninth Street and Summitt Avenue, Darby.  It was designed by Clarence E. Wunder of Philadelphia.