Hike #1205; North Harrisburg Loop
3/9/19 North Harrisburg Loop with Ken Zaruni, Diane Reider, Craig Craig, and Peter Fleszar
This next hike would be a book loop much following the Capital Area Greenbelt around the Harrisburg area.
I’d done a lot of this before, but never got around to finishing the north end of it.
View north where we started
My first time hiking it was with Jillane several years ago when we were out to visit the Pennsylvania State Farm Show, which is located right along the greenway.
View where we crossed the rd
We did a loop that encompassed the southern half of it. I then went back to do another one that connected from Harrisburg along much of the old Pennsylvania Canal to Middletown. Another hike was between there and the area of Colebrook PA.
Those hikes are officially part of the 911 National Memorial Trail, but they are disjointed with the walking route. When I got to this area in the 911memorialtrail series, I began talking with Robert Thomas, a planner from PA who was putting together some of the route with the 911 Trail board. I was afraid of turning everyone off with the long distances of road walks, and he suggested that the walking route would be different than the cycling route.
Asylum Run
I started doing those sections, and the series has brought us as far as Lebanon, but I also didn’t want to ignore a lot of the great spots that are part of the cycling route that would actually be good for hikers. Among them is the Capital Area Greenbelt.
Capital Greenbelt
As a side to the regular through series, I’ve been doing some of the alternatives. I did this all the way across New Jersey when we did the entire Morris Canal series in conjunction with the actual designated route. There are in fact so many different ways we can go, it only makes sense to include all of them anyway. I still want to re-do the Highlands Trail section as a part of this series as well, marketed as one of the “alternatives”.|
Capital Greenbelt at Asylum Run
Anyway, because there has been so much snow on the ground, it seemed like this was a sensible thing to throw in there. I couldn’t pull together another further west one for January, and the section heading north toward Lebanon might involve getting our feet wet, so it made sense to go for this jump ahead for the time being.
I decided on a meeting place at the Shoppes At Susquehanna, an outlet mall sort of thing a ways to the east of the greenway.
Scary!
There is a spur of it that follows the Asylum Run to nearby, which I had done with Jillane in the past. I figured it would be good to do that section again anyway, because it really was pretty nice.
I carpooled with Ken, and we got to the “shoppes” (I hate those names on modern buildings) a bit early. Once everyone had arrived except Pete, we started moving on.
We walked around the outside of the stores, and then headed around the Cracker Barrel restaurant.
Along Asylum Run
We took to the entrance road known as Brindle Drive down to Progress Ave, and skirted to the left as the road entered a bit of a cut.
While we were walking that very short section, with the plan on going up slope on the other side to the Capital Blue Cross complex, Pete pulled up in his car and asked if we wanted to buy some girl scout cookies!
He had his daughter with them, and had just gone to a distribution center to pick them up.
Precision
I of course love the Samoa ones, because there is no generic alternative to them anywhere. They are absolutely amazing. I don’t even usually like anything with coconut, but those are incredible.
Along Asylum Run
Pete planned on dropping his daughter off and then trying to come back and meet us a bit later. We headed up the slope to Capital Blue Cross, which looked totally vacant, and walked the parking lots a bit to the southeast.
We skirted around the side of a retention pond. I tried to cross the thing on some ice but went through, so my feet were wet most the entire hike. I didn’t worry about trying to keep them dry at all at this point.
Along Asylum Run
We got onto Elmerton Ave briefly to Lawrence Drive, and followed it south to Andrea Ave. This took us to the right to the pig tail of the Capital Greenbelt.
I had not followed this little piece before. When I walked it last, I had come out of Veterans Park with Jillane. This bit was new for me.
We headed down hill, and Asylum Run was a pretty stream along the left side most the entire way. Sins warned of “80% grade” on the trail, which we realized getting closer was “8.0%”. They even got as specific at one point as “8.33%” which we thought was funny.
Historic postcard image of the state hospital
As we continued, handsome brick buildings of the old asylum came into view to the right.
The state hospital
This was the Harrisburg State Hospital, originally known as the Harrisburg State Lunatic Hospital and Union Asylum for the Insane when it was developed in 1845.
Historic state hospital postcard
The hospital came as a result of social reformer Dorothea Dix, who completely changed the care of mental illness in America. Prior to her work, methods such as a rotating chair and drilling holes in the heads of patients to relieve pressure was still considered commonplace.
State hospital
After suffering mental breaktown herself, she found inspiration in other social workers and reformers and her life changed direction.
Dix authored several books, made strides in improvement of medical treatment, and served as the Superintendent of nurses during the Civil War. Her successful lobbying efforts helped to create many hospitals including the Harrisburg facility.
The hospital began accepting patients in 1851. The main building, completed that year, was in the Kirkbride Plan style, which was the popular building style of the time.
State hospital power plant
The name was changed to Harrisburg State Hospital in 1921. Continued improvement and medications eventually led to a major fall in patient population, and eventually deinstitutionalization. The state hospital closed down in 2006, but today is home to various government offices.
The trail took us along the slope of the Asylum Run from which we could see the buildings, and it descended to the power plant that was associated with the facility.
Asylum Run
To the left of us, there was a project to repair or replace some old pipeline parallel with the creek, and there were wooden plank road and stone road sections.
State hospital buildings
I decided we would make that our return route for something different.
We paralleled Pine Drive to the intersection with Sycamore Drive. This is where the main loop section of the greenbelt comes together. To the left, it went up hill toward the south side of the city, and to the right it led parallel with Asylum Run on a much more level area, parallel with Sycamore Drive.
The creek was encased in a stone lined sluice through the entire section, and brick buildings lined the way that I can only assume were some sort of pumping stations. Maybe some were for drinking water, and the downstream ones were probably something to do with sewage.
Ruins
There was one stone ruin across a foot bridge as well, which looked to be much older.
We continued along the trail, and there were some sections with deep snow, and others where the snow was completely gone altogether.
We continued along the trail to a couple more brick buildings and one old wooden building after passing close to Rt 22. They appear to be about the same vintage as the hospital land, but the wooden one might be an older farm house.
State hospital grounds
The trail went around these, and then came out along Circle Drive and next to Rt 22. We then descended to pass beneath Route 22 by way of a pedestrian underpass.
State hospital grounds
I then turned to the right on the other side on the lands of the PA State Farm Show with it’s impressive large scale brick buildings.
Farm show building
The Pennsylvania State Farm Show Complex and Expo Center was built mostly between 1931 and 1939.
Farm show building
They have some amazing cement images of animals and agricultural themes built into the tops of them. Events are going on all the time at the place, and this day was no exception.
We walked a bit along the trail route, and there was a guy guarding one of the doors. I asked him what was going on, and he said there was a gun show, a monster truck show, and a bison show. The bison show was free, and I was half thinking we should go in and have a look, but we’d have had to go back around the south side of the building, and it was going to be a long ways around as it was.
Underpass
We chatted with him a bit, and then continued on the trail route to the north.
We walked on further ahead and the path moved away from Rt 22 to the west a bit. The lines going into the expo center were huge. I’m not sure if it was more for the monster truck show or the gun show. Maybe both.
We crossed Wildwood Park Drive, and then the trail followed along the edge of the entrance road to Harrisburg Area Community College. Signs along the way show it going around the west side of the buildings, but we should have walked through the complex itself, which is what google maps said to do.
Farm show complex
We passed the buildings, and then crossed a footbridge over the Paxton Creek to the west. I had thought this might have been the route of the Pennsylvania Canal, but it apparently was not. That would have been a bit further to the west from here.
The trail passed along the edge of a parking area where they’d plowed snow over some of it, and then left the north side. It first followed a service road, but broke off it to the left. After a knoll, it descended slightly to parallel with Industrial Road, which was in all likelihood the route of the Pennsylvania Eastern Division Canal completed in 1833. This was part of the Main Line of Public Works between Philadelphia and Pittsburg I’d hiked so much of lately.
We continued to the north on the trail which remained pretty close to the road. There was a nice little break spot and a picnic bench just before we passed beneath Route 81.
We went under the highway, and then ended up at Wildwood Park entrance.
Wildwood Park, formerly the Wetzel’s Swamp on the north side of Harrisburg, was opened in 1907 as the largest of several city parks designed by leading horticulturist Warren Manning in 1901. It was part of a nationwide movement in urban park development to improve recreation, nature preservation, and flood control. It was inspired by “City Beautiful” advocates Horace McFarland and Mira Lloyd Dock.
There was a restroom, and then a one mile long stretch of the original Pennsylvania Canal where it skirted the swamp heading up into the park. The Capital Area Greenbelt went to the right, around what is now Wildwood Lake, but I wanted to walk the old canal route, which takes us the same place, more. We headed off onto it heading north.
On the spot
The section was very nice and well preserved. Much of the Pennsylvania Canal is really hard to find these days, especially along the Susquehanna River, and many sections were built over with railroad, so this was a rare treat.
The section had tons of visitors. It would be the most people we’d see walking around for the entire hike. Even though there wasn’t much of an improved surface, there were actually a great number of people with baby strollers.
We continued north to the end of the preserve where there was a parking area. We headed out to that, and there was a county cop or ranger or something in a car at the top. We walked down to the restroom before moving on, and then headed up Industrial Road to Lingletown Road, Route 39.
The former Pennsylvania Railroad was right there, and we saw a train coming by from north to south. We turned left onto the bridge over the tracks and watched, and could see up into the Dauphin Narrows where the Blue Mountain hit the Susquehanna. I want to explore that and find the old route of the Appalachian Trail up there some time.
Blue Mountain
Just on the other side of the tracks, we could see where the Pennsylvania Canal continued. The towpath and prism were both pretty obvious from the road. It was less obvious on the north side, but still easy to see where it went. Hopefully I’ll get to following this to Fort Hunter some time in the near future as well. That would be the extent of where I could walk it because above there, the highways are totally built over it.
We headed left and then turned left again on Kaby Street by way of a connecting path. The street doesn’t actually connect at the end any more. The trail route continues on street south from here, from Kaby Street I think to Lucknow Road to 6th Street I think it was.
Pete F met up with us in this area and used on street parking. From there, we continued on street route through neighborhoods heading south.
There were some nice big trees on the route, and the most interesting part was the study of how the buildings were set up. Many were the same types of architecture, built around the same time, but then we’d get to a different part of the neighborhood where it was obviously built at a different time.
We continued through this route, passed under Rt 81, and I think headed west to Green Street to continue south further. The trail route cut to the west a bit more when we got to the Harrisburg City boundary at Vaughn Street. There, we headed to where there was a paved path along the Susquehanna and Front Street. We continued walking south there, with a sign welcoming us to the city.
Along the Susquehanna
There were lots of historic homes on the left side of Front Street, and great views of the river as we headed south. Even though it was so close to the street, it was still pretty cool to see everything so close.
I’d already walked most of this section before on previous hikes, but this time we opted to go down lower when we got to Maclay Street. The city water system or something was placed behind a walkway with step blocks up the side for a good distance, which provided a great route to walk.
Governor's Residence
One of the buildings we saw in this stretch was the Pennsylvania Governor's Residence, a Georgian Style structure completed rather late, in 1968. From there, most buildings weren’t visible down where we were walking.
There were lots of neat little murals along the river of herons and such as we walked. I think they were in the vicinity of the Harvey Taylor Bridge across the Susquehanna. The bridge was built in 1952 and named for a former state senator.
We soon approached the Walnut Street Bridge, the former bridge across the Susquehanna and oldest of Harrisburg’s major bridges.
https://www.youtube.com/embed/6DxG9yOS1dQ
Theresa Koppenhaver video of 1996 bridge collapse
Walnut Street Bridge, constructed in 1890, connects City Island with Harrisburg, and until 1996 spanned the Susquehanna. The bridge was closed to all but pedestrian use after Hurricane Agnes in 1972.
It was known as "The People's Bridge" because it eased the monopoly of the toll the nearby Camelback Bridge held on the river. That bridge stood where today's Market Street Bridge stands.
My plan for this hike was the leave the greenbelt and head over to City Island to do it’s perimeter. It was just another thing on my “to do” list that I’d not gotten around to. We crossed the bridge and turned right on the other side.
City Island actually had all sorts of concessions and such, and used to host ball games and concerts for a time, which included Metallica and others. That kind of died down, and the town I believe didn’t want the growth. None of the concessions were open on this day. We just turned to the right, hungry and hoping for food, but we’d have to wait.
A path led along the river for a bit and to Riverside Drive, and then we reached the John Harris Tradin Post, a replica of a log cabin used by Harrisburg’s founder.
John Harris Sr. came to North America in the late 1600s, and acquired a trading license in 1705 to operate along the Susquehanna River. He operated Harris's Ferry here and was a substantial part of Pennsylvania's growth. Most all immigrants during the early time period came across the Susquehanna at Harris’s Ferry.
City Island Beach
We continued to the very north end of the island, which had a sort of concrete beach out to the end. This was apparently once a bathing area in the river, but now closed. I walked out into the water for a bit. It never dropped off very fast. I thought it was really cool.
The old bath house was still standing but didn’t appear to have been in use for some time. There were a lot of other people walking around the island, but not as many as we saw earlier at Wildwood Park.
We had a great view of the capital building across the main river channel, and then left the north side to follow the west side and turn back to the south. We tried walking through an area that was a mini golf course. As it turned out, Ken had taken his family here once before, so it was rather ironic that this was the place. On the ride out there, he had just told me about that trip and that stop, not knowing we’d be walking right on through there.
It looked like a canal channel out on the island’s far west end. I’m not sure that it really was, but it was certainly man made. We skirted the edge of it and could see the far span of the old Walnut Street Bridge, which is missing a couple of sections in the middle from the flood that closed it.
We continued under it and then back to the other side, and then decided we’d go for a different view by walking the Market Street Bridge back over.
This bridge was built on the same piers of the original Camelback Bridge that used to be there. That was a Theodore Burr arch structure, by the man known for the Burr Arch Truss covered bridges, completed in 1817. The original plaque from that bridge is now built into the façade of the Market Street Bridge’s Harrisburg side.
The broken People's Bridge
To the immediate south, we could see the Cumberland Valley Railroad bridge, a concrete arch span. The original bridge on this site was a covered structure carrying the railroad in the 1830s. It was replaced by another wooden structure after fire and flooding wrecked it. The strengthened bridge opened in 1880. This was replaced by a steel structure in 1887.
"Rural Resorts and Summer Retreats along the line of the Cumberland Valley Railroad, 1881"
The steel structure only lasted until about 1917 when it was replaced by the current concrete arch bridge.
Further down, the next bridge we could see was former Philadelphia and Reading Railroad’s bridge. The original bridge on that site was completed in 1891, with stone piers and wrought iron trusses. That lasted until 1920, when the piers were encased in concrete, and slowly filled between with arches. Eventually, there would be 53 arches carrying the railroad over the Susquehanna.
In front of this bridge, some of the piers of the never completed South Pennsylvania Railroad were visible. Much of the work on that line was done, including grades, bridges, and tunnels, but never completed.
Old Hills Capital obelisks
We reached the end of the Market Street bridge where there were a couple of high obelisks. These were columns from the original Pennsylvania State Capital building that burned in 1897.
From here, we left the greenbelt for a while to head over toward the capital building.
The Capital Building was designed by Joseph Miller Husten in 1902 and completed in 1906 in Beaux-Arts Style with decorative Renaissance themes.
Hills Capital
This Capital building is the third for Harrisburg, and is known as the Huston Capital. Harrisburg became the Capital of the state after Philadelphia in 1812. The first capital, known as the Hills Capital, was destroyed by fire in 1897.
Cobb Capital
The second capital was the Cobb Capital which was never finished, when funding ran out in 1899.
The current building is full of sculptures and such, and is often associated as a hall of art. Because of all of the adornments, it ended up costing something like three times what was initially allocated for construction, and it’s builder was accused of grafting for more money.
Husten Capital
We headed through town and then up through the capital complex, by way of stairs and such. The front of the building had a great view out to the Susquehanna, and the columns of the front were quite grand.
Capital
We walked through some handsome wooden rotating doors into the front chamber where there was a guard. We were allowed to go in and photograph just that area, but we had barely missed the last tour of the capital. We got some great shots and chatted with the guy at the door for a bit.
Capital
He was standoffish at first. It seemed obvious that he didn’t want anyone coming in initially. Then, after talking to him a bit and letting him know what we were doing, he warmed up quite a lot. He told us about how he went through the military, about guns, and about how he wants to move off the grid in Alaska. Apparently some veterans are still allowed to do what they call “homesteading” out in the back woods. He was looking forward to going, and said his sons wanted to go with him. He proudly told us about what a great shot his one son is, and how the youngest one was already able to hit a paper plate from such and such a distance.
Capital
We made our way from here to the back of the Capital, and Pete took us to where the hiking club of the area used to meet for their long distance hikes way back.
We made our way from here away from the capital complex and to an area off of Walnut Street I think it was where there was an indoor mall in the bottom of tall buildings called Strawberry Square. We used a pedestrian bridge to get across and into the upper level of this building.
There, we figured we’d have an easy time finding food. There were two Chinese places, and then one closed place that’d have had burgers. I think there was an Italian place somewhere there, but just about everything was closing. We went down the escalators, and the only thing in the lower level of the mall we found open was the Rite Aid. We continued from there out to Market Street area and walked a few blocks. Everyplace we got to was closed. Some of us started using our phones trying to find something open, but no luck. It didn’t look like we were going to find anything.
We headed back to Strawberry Square and walked through the mall again, but even more of the stores had closed including I think Rite Aid.
Historic view...
It was amazing that so much stuff would be closed so early on a weekend.
Theatre today
We passed the 1836 Greek Revival Style Wilson Hotel on one of the corners. The amazing building was frequented by many famous old military names, and then was later turned into a live vaudeville theatre, as well as a movie theater. It was “Victorianized” in the late 1800s with the famous façade it has today. The building fell into great disrepair, and the front façade was saved with newer building attached to the back for retail, so it retains much of it’s historic ambiance.
We continued out to Market Street and started heading toward the former Pennsylvania Railroad station. The original portion of the current Queen Anne style station opened in 1887, and was added upon in 1902 and 1910.
The first station to serve the site was built in 1837. Pennsylvania Railroad took over, and two other stations served the site, built in 1849 and 1857.
The grand station, now known as Harrisburg Transportation Center, has some amazing large train sheds, a fireplace inside, waiting rooms, and nice hallways and benches that appear to date back to at least half a century ago.
We walked all through the station, because it just had to be seen, and then headed back to Market Street, which we took down hill and beneath the railroad by way of a large underpass with walkway. The old canal used to pass through this area somewhere, but it’s hard to pinpoint if the railroad took it over, or if it was at the Paxton Creek. We crossed the creek, and then turned to the left to head toward the Appalachian Brewing Company where we’d hoped to have dinner. Unfortunately, it was at least a 45 minute wait to be seated, and we couldn’t be waiting that when we had so far to go still. We headed out, and then made our way underneath the State Street bridge to the right. The large arched columns took us out to a road going uphill alongside of it on what’s known as Mount Kalmia.
Once we reached the top, we turned to the left onto a foot path. This brought us through a swath of woods that afforded a seasonal view into Harrisburg and toward the Capital building, and then came out behind the Harrisburg Cemetery, formerly the Mount Kalmia Cemetery.
The old cemetery was “officially” opened in 1845, although interments were happening there for many years prior to that. It’s the resting place of many Revolutionary War soldiers. Many politicians are also buried there including a couple of former Pennsylvania Governors.
Path
We wandered through the cemetery toward the northeast, where I planned to simply exit and follow Herr Street toward the Capital Area Greenbelt. This did not pan out, because the entire thing was surrounded by fencing. We had to turn to the left and try to find our way out another way.
We headed west along the fence line, and got to one point where it seemed feasible to get out and climb over. It wouldn’t be that easy, but we’d all get over it to head out onto Herr Street. We then turned right and started following that east.
We continued to a left turn on 17th Street. That took us down hill somewhat and to the greenway, which paralleled a road through some of the old hospital grounds. There was one abandoned brick building out behind us.
We reached the bottom of the hill at the bridge over Asylum Run, at the other end of the greenbelt loop. From there, rather than follow the same route in that we’d followed before, we walked the stone laid construction road that was put in for the underground water lines or whatever it was.
This pathway continued to get better as it became a large board walkway. They had equipment out there which still had keys and of course I had to drive a little bit. We then continued up along this clearing to where it finally ended. At that point, we just turned slightly left to get back on the official greenway trail.
We crossed the state farm road, and it seemed to me this trail just went on forever, much longer than it was earlier on. We eventually got back to Andrea Ave and continued through the neighborhood a different way than we went before, directly out to Progress Ave where we made a left turn. We skirted a couple of businesses, which had food and were still open, but at this point we were so close to the cars that no one wanted to stop really.
We headed from there along a church property and partly through the yard of the Primary School on the corner of Elmerton Ave. I wanted to go through that way and come out behind the shops where we were parked, but then there was a cop parked there watching us. I decided it would be smarter to just go the slightly longer way and stay on the roads the way we came out.
We went up hill a bit, passed the cracker barrel, and were soon back at the cars. Ken looked at his GPS and determined that we had done over twenty miles, which was far more than I was anticipating, but I was glad we saw as much as we did, and that everyone was still alright with that.
I stopped at Sheetz along my long drive back and tried my best to eat stuff without spilling. It’s not really easy, but I needed something after all of that.
There still is so much more to see in Harrisburg, and I want to do the capital tour. We’ll have to return to it one day. It’s always a really cool experience.
HAM
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