Residents want to recapture Scotland's bygone charm

Some residents want to recapture Scotland’s dignity.

The banks of the once-picturesque Conococheague Creek are overgrown. Sidewalks are broken.

“Driving on Main Street is more jarring than a ride on the Wildcat at Hersheypark,” said resident Mike Peters. “The road hasn't been repaved since the 60's. The Beatles, LBJ, and Woodstock were in the news the last time Scotland Main Street had a facelift.”

In the half century since, Scotland has become a solid bedroom community. The ma-and-pa grocery stores, a bank and even the convenience store left long ago. Its handful of small businesses huddle inside a large parking lot. The Asian restaurant and a sandwich shop are busy.

Within two years, part of the village is to get new sidewalks, and all of Main Street is to be repaved. Residents are a bit impatient the get the $4.5 million projects moving.

“It might motivate folks to spruce up their properties more,” Mike Peters said.

Jerry Peters, Mike’s 82-year-old father and a lifelong Scotland resident, said that “people took pride in their properties. We were all poor. We appreciated what we had and (took) care of it.”

View of the creek

It’s uncertain which property owners would be involved in bringing back the creek-view from Main Street.

Scotland, home to about 1,400 people, is one of the many unincorporated villages in Franklin County. It doesn’t have a town council. Its Main Street is a state highway. Greene Township, which governs Scotland, has its offices and municipal park at the village.

Longtime residents fret about Scotland’s civic identity. Will the Scotland Community Association survive? Are neighbors still getting to know one another?

Volunteers once ran an annual festival and a Memorial Day parade.

“Getting people to help was a lot of work,” said Cathy Mohler, who’s volunteered for years in the community. “Young people are not interested.”

“Everybody is so busy,” Jerry Peters said. “What happens is the same people help out. I think they get burned out. We have lost some of those things people used to do. Everyone is so damn busy.”

Scotland’s social center is the post office where old timers greet each other. People who live in the village must pick up their mail at a box in the post office. Newcomers often rush in and out to get their mail, according to Jerry Peters.

“It’s really tough for our small towns,” said George Pomeroy, director of the Center for Land Use at Shippensburg University. “They’re growing differently than they have in the past. People don’t identify with the community as much as they have in the past. They may identify with their job or online community. They certainly not identifying with their town.”

Curbside icons often identify places. Philadelphia has Independence Hall. Chambersburg has the Memorial Fountain.

Scotland had been known for a postcard view of a wide creek, two short waterfalls and a pond on the campus of the former Scotland School for Veterans Children.

“It’s hard to know a creek is here,” Mike Peters said.

Adrian Murphy cut away the brush at the stream bank across Main Street from his home so his wife could see the waterfall. The scene is still tough to spot.

Jerry Peters said he organized a group about eight  years ago to cut back the brush along the creek, as the state was preparing to close SSVC. He was not certain who owned the property. Greene Township provided the equipment and hauled away the brush.

“I just decided to go ahead and do it,” Jerry Peters said.

Ownership of the land hiding the view is disputed.

Scotland Campus Inc. owns property only on the other side of the creek, according to David Newell, director of Scotland Campus.

Brenda Murphy-Craig, who owns two properties on Main Street across from the view, said surveys indicated that her properties ended at the street.

Franklin County’s online mapping of tax parcels shows that Scotland Campus owns both sides of the creek in that section. The mapping uses the Global Positioning System, but is approximate.

The issue is the latest for the new owner of the 175-acre campus and its neighbors.

Campus brings changes

The state maintained an open campus at SSVC. Local residents fished the pond and walked the roads. Scotland Campus currently is closed to the public. The entrance from Main Street is chained and posted.

“There has to be respect for the property when someone comes on the property,” Newell said. “When that is not received, we address it. The whole entitlement issue is real for us. We have had people that were using the parking area for nefarious purposes. We have had people not respecting the property and not paying attention to the posted signs.”

His biggest concern is liability and “specific illegal behaviors.” People have been caught fishing in violation of state law. Evidence of drug use also was found.

“At the present time given the issues and challenges we face, any wants and desires of the community are secondary” to those on the private campus, he said.

The first area of responsibility for Scotland Campus is the safety and well-being of its students and residents, according to Newell.

“It would not be a priority to landscape portions of the property that are kept in a natural state,” Newell said. “On the other side of the creek it is not for us to decide.”

The campus is nearing capacity, according to Newell. He is currently working with Han Dong University in South Korea and Shippensburg University to expand the use of the campus. A two-year program would host 200 additional post-high school students pursuing degrees in information technology and entrepreneurship. The program would require construction on campus.

Winebrenner Theological Seminary, which originally bought the SSVC campus four years ago, is closing its operations at the campus and moving all operations back to Findlay, Ohio, Newell said. The move gives Scotland Campus the opportunity to offer courses that the seminary might not have agreed with.

Scotland Campus started as the property manager for Winebrenner and today stands on its own.

The campus currently hosts the Global Vision Christian School, Providence Christian Academy and an international basketball school. The campus also is preparing to offer a college and post-graduate degrees in religious topics.

Newell said he would welcome tying the campus to the township’s proposed walking trail when it is completed.

Looking to the future

Cutting brush and weeds along the stream is the responsibility of a property owner, according to Greg Lambert, township engineer.

A township ordinance empowers the township to force residential property owners to cut weeds taller than 12 inches. The exceptions include riparian buffers, the plantings along streams.

For now, sidewalks and paving are coming to Main Street.

The Pennsylvania Department of Transportation this week sent letters to property owners to alert them about preliminaries for the construction.

The sidewalk project has been folded into PennDOT’s road work, according to Lambert. After trying for years, the township in January got a $500,000 state grant for the sidewalks and curbing. A sidewalk on the north side of Main Street will stretch from Scotland Elementary School to the Greene Township Municipal Park.

“For us to get a grant is fortunate,” Jerry Peters said. “How many people could afford a sidewalk?”

PennDOT is to bid the paving project in January 2019, according to spokesman Greg Penny. The project is to be completed by February 2020. Main Street is to be resurfaced for 1.5 miles from Pa. 997 to Pa. 997. Estimated cost is $4 million.

Main Street is part of the increasingly busy back-road routes to north Chambersburg from both Interstate 81 and U.S. 11.

When Murphy-Craig moved to Scotland in 1990, Main Street was quiet except for the change of shift at Letterkenny Army Depot.

“Traffic is a lot busier,” said. “It’s a thoroughfare. People zoom through here.”

Col. W.C. Bambrick wrote 90 years ago for the Kittochtinny historical society: “Scotland after a century and a half lays no claim to civic greatness or urban charm. It has however an irregular rustic beauty of location, and from its comfortable homes … will come substantial average men and women.

“Easy access to Chambersburg and Shippensburg gives the boys and girls of the village excellent educational advantages. A suitable train schedule enables a score of skilled workmen to live the simple pleasant life of the country, while their daily wage is earned in the county seat.”

Today trains, loaded with container trucks, sail through the town. The evidence is gone that the rebels burned the railroad trestle during the Civil War.

Mike Peters recalls the days when he rode his bicycle to Wadel’s gas station for Swedish Fish, baseball cards and a cold Coca-Cola.

“I know we could never get it back to the way it was when I was a kid,” Peters said.

He said he wants to see the town looking better.

The community’s heart is still beating.

Jerry Peters told a reporter that it took a while for a tree that fell in a storm to be cleared away. He took it as a sign.

But when the tree fell, neighbors gathered to make sure everyone was okay, according to Susan Murphy who lives across the street from the tree.

Her children recently navigated the broken sidewalks on bicycles. A stay-at-home mom, Murphy said she likes the “community feel” of Scotland.

Scotland has plenty of green space around it -- youth ball fields beside the creek, the municipal park, the elementary school and the Scotland Campus.

“Everybody walks to the park,” Susan Murphy said. “We’ve gotten to know people who don’t live beside us. We know our neighbors. Every time you see them, they talk to you like you see them all the time.”

Jim Hook, 717-262-4759