Move over, America 250.
Lawrence Park Township has its own landmark anniversary this year.
The town that the General Electric Company built beginning in 1911 became Lawrence Park Township in 1926. It originally had been part of Millcreek.
Special events, including a July 4 parade and summer productions of “Romeo and Juliet” in the context of the town’s early days, are planned in the yearlong Lawrence Park centennial celebration.
Wabtec, the company that merged with GE Transportation in 2019, is celebrating too, with a blog detailing GE’s entwined history with the town.
‘Placing its chips on Erie’
In 1907, “the General Electric Company made a big bet, placing its chips on Erie, PA as the centerpiece of its Midwest expansion,” according to the Wabtec blog.
The company needed a new engineering and manufacturing center to take the pressure off capacity operations at its Schenectady, New York, and Lynne, Massachusetts, plants. The man tasked with finding a location for the new plant made a side trip to Erie to visit friend Matthew Griswold Jr., president of Griswold Manufacturing.
Griswold opened the man’s eyes to the “possibilities of Erie: undeveloped, affordable land in abundance; easy access to a vital port and railway lines; and a local population that knew how to work, and work hard,” according to the Wabtec blog.
GE chose Erie for its new facility and bought 800 acres of land for the plant and for a community for its workers. The “garden city” was modeled after English towns with private lawns and public parks.
Land also was set aside for a school, churches and businesses along Iroquois Avenue. Named for War of 1812 naval hero Capt. James Lawrence, Lawrence Park additionally would have sidewalks and streetlights plus electric, water, sanitation and gas services.
A “big steel girder bridge” was built over Four Mile Creek in 1911 to connect the plant and the town.
Lawrence Park’s trademark rowhouses were built in 1917 for a growing number of employees as GE took on war-related manufacturing during World War I.
No taxation without representation, sort of
Thirty-four Lawrence Park residents petitioned Erie County Court to create Lawrence Park Township in December 1925.
The petitioners lobbied for a new municipality with its own government separate from Millcreek.
At the time, Lawrence Park had about half of Millcreek Township’s total assessed property value. GE was assessed at almost $2.7 million, Lawrence Park Realty Co. at almost $600,000. Millcreek property as a whole was assessed at just over $8.1 million.
Lawrence Park Township was created by the court in February 1926. The first township officials, most of them GE employees, took office following a special election on March 23, 1926.
‘Nothing less than extraordinary’
In the century since the founding of Lawrence Park Township, residents continued to work for GE and later Wabtec to blaze a “trail of engineering and manufacturing innovation” that has been “nothing less than extraordinary,” Jim Meyer, general manager of locomotive systems engineering at Wabtec, said in the company’s historical blog.
“The Erie plant and workers of Lawrence Park have been at the heart of locomotive innovation and manufacturing for more than a century,” Meyer said. “That innovation has evolved right alongside the rail industry itself, starting first with Edison’s electric locomotive designs and successfully pivoting to locomotive products with internal combustion engines, as dictated by the market.
“These diesel locomotives would ultimately become the standard bearer of Wabtec, and the entire rail industry, with Erie serving as their launchpad.”
And for more than a century, the company remained involved in the Lawrence Park community.
“GE literally built the town, and along the way infused it with great schools, an apprenticeship program that was a gateway to a meaningful career for so many, and a strong police and fire department,” Jay Beebe, of the Lawrence Park Historical Society, said in the Wabtec blog. “Beyond these key foundational elements, the company sponsored night classes, arts and entertainment, local youth sports teams and special events for kids.”
