Thrifty Acres - A River Runs Through It

Hello! The local college library occasionally has a used book sale, and one such sale is going on this week. When I go, I pass over boring (to me) used textbooks in favor of the more obscure items, some of which I suspect came from the donations of older alumni. 

For example, when I visited the sale yesterday there were numerous pamphlets from various house museums and other points of interest here and abroad. Many were decades old. But it was early in the sale and prices were still a little high, so I only bought two items. One was a 1950's-era speech therapy kit; I purchased it for the word flash cards. 

The other item was the 1937 A Plan For Lower Merion Township, purchased for personal interest. We lived in Lower Merion Township (suburban Philadelphia) for five years, and so this book was for nostalgia's sake, and to see what the region had looked like years before we had ever lived there. 

A photo of one of my favorite roads in the township was included in the book, looking much as it had when we used to live there:

Yes, that road is actually a ford; Mill Creek runs over Old Gulph Road. It always amused me to see a road thus constructed - and still being used. Seemed very quaint to me, and indicative of the area's history. According to this book, "Historical Old Gulph Road was reported to be laid out by William Penn as early as 1685 and was officially confirmed in 1713." That is historical indeed!

Needless to say, in times of heavy rain the road is impassable, and, since 2005, is closed for the winter due to icing. You can see a modern photo of the road and the wintertime gate closures HERE.


In regards to the used book sale, I was told by a library staffer that prices would come down later in the sale, but she wasn't sure when. So I may keep my eyes open and check back in a day or two. Who knows what I may drag home then!