Stoodthere.com is running a contest to rank "The 100 Greatest Places in the USA."

The Web site lists 100 of the nation's "most wondrous, inspiring, or thought-provoking locations."

Each listing contains photos of people who stood somewhere in that place, had their pictures taken and submitted them.

The site doesn't say who chose the list, but it might have been someone from Pennsylvania. Pennsylvania has six nominees. The Liberty Bell ranks third right now and the National Memorial Arch at Valley Forge ranks eighth.

There are four other Pennsylvania sites on the list, including Gettysburg and Intercourse.

Actually, the listing is "Amish Country, Intercourse."

It's No. 75 right now.

Three photos are included with "Amish Country, Intercourse." Two show people standing by signs in Intercourse and one shows a guy standing near a horse and buggy.

"As with the nearby towns of Blue Ball and Paradise, Pennsylvania," says a brief description accompanying the photos, "Intercourse is a popular site for tourists on account of its location in so-called 'Amish country."'

In so-called Stoodthereland, anyone can affect the standings by voting for one of the 100 places.

Last Tuesday, so-called "Amish country" was No. 58. By Friday it had slipped to No. 61. And it's still falling.

Anyone who cares whether the hometown site turns out to be No. 1 or No. 100 should vote. "Polls remain open through Dec. 1.

Pick your greatest place today. Otherwise, No. 86, so-called "Mount Washington, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania." could move past Intercourse on the list.

In case you hadn't heard, Mount Washington is a steep hill overlooking the Pittsburgh skyline. It apparently was rated the second most beautiful vista in America by USA Weekend, a so-called magazine.

So vote early and often.

Give the heart of the so-called Garden Spot a chance.


The tollbooth roof lives on


• Columbian Keith Branum says the roof of one of the Columbia-Wrightsville Bridge tollbooths shelters a house at 75 Brandt Blvd.

The house was built for Branum's father-in-law, James B. Eshleman, by his father, J. Miller Eshleman, who founded Eshleman's Quarry on Quarry road outside Landisville.

"J. Miller didn't like laying off his employees in the winter," explains Branum, "so he would put them to work building houses in Landisville."

Other parts of the house were recycled from Lancaster sites.

Bricks lined Lancaster trolley tracks. A marble fireplace hearth came from the Woolworth building on North Queen Street.

Zion Lutheran Church in Landisville now owns the church and uses it for classrooms.

• Mike Santaniello, of Manheim Township, says his late father told him something interesting about the bridge that preceded the Columbia-Wrightsville bridge in 1930.

That was a one-lane railroad bridge immediately upstream. Cars and trucks had to straddle the rails.

This is the way traffic worked on the railroad bridge.

If a train was crossing, all motor vehicles stopped.

Otherwise, vehicular traffic from the east could cross over for 20 minutes, then traffic from the west for 20 minutes, and so on.

Imagine putting up with such an arrangement today.


Jack Brubaker can be reached at jbrubaker@LNPnews.com or 291-8781. The Scribbler column appears Tuesdays and Fridays.