Not one but two Lehigh Valley legends helped to close out the 20th century by appearing on U.S. Postal Service stamps.
Twenty-five years ago this week, The Express-Times reported that Easton-based Crayola and Bethlehem-area poet Stephen Vincent Benét would be featured on stamps issued the following year.
Crayola slid into the “Celebrate the Century” series with a stamp featuring the first box of crayons made in the U.S. in 1903 by local parent company Binney & Smith. Its stamp appeared in the series’ first sheet of 30 recalling events of the 1900s and 1910s, the newspaper reported on Dec. 10, 1997.
Another stamp for 1998, outside the century series, commemorated Benét, who was born a century earlier in Fountain Hill and won the Pulitzer Prize in poetry in 1929 for his most famous work, the epic Civil War poem “John Brown’s Body.”
Each stamp went for 32 cents in 1998. Individually, each now goes for a buck or two, at least according to the Mystic Stamp Co. dealer website, though a full mint-condition “Celebrate the Century” set is listed at about $150.
MORE LEHIGH VALLEY HISTORICAL HEADLINES THIS WEEK
• 20 YEARS AGO | Dec. 7-9, 2002: Picketers from the infamous Westboro Baptist Church in Kansas espouse hateful homophobic slogans but encounter plenty of counter-protesters during three days of demonstrations at Lehigh Valley colleges and churches. (Westboro also planned local protests in 2007 and 2013 but never showed for either.)
• 25 YEARS AGO | Dec. 5, 1997: New Jersey Gov. Christie Whitman cuts down an 8-foot spruce at Glenview Farms in Blairstown for display in Blair Academy. … Dec. 6: Film crews turn to Bethlehem police officers Frederick Mill and Danny Miksel and Easton paramedics John Nicholas and Nicole Timberman to play extras in the local filming of “The Florentine.”
• 50 YEARS AGO | Dec. 6, 1972: Chess international grandmaster Arthur B. Bisguier plays 50 simultaneous matches at Lafayette College, winning 46, drawing with 3, and losing to just one — Warren Hills Regional High School junior Thomas Faughnan, who also managed to score a draw against Danish grandmaster Bent Larsen earlier in the year in Riegelsville. The last person standing was Warren County Judge Paul Aaroe, who lasted 46 moves.
• 100 YEARS AGO | Dec. 6, 1922: Easton gang leader Tony Turko is convicted a second time for the infamous Cat Swamp murder in northern New Jersey in which a passerby was shot and killed during the hijacking of a silk delivery truck. Turko was arrested in the Lehigh Valley in 1921, convicted the first time in January 1922 and ultimately executed in 1924. … Dec. 10: The Liberty Bell Highway, a new concrete road linking the Lehigh Valley and Philadelphia, opens. The Easton Express reports: “This is admitted to be one of the finest concrete roads … in the entire country … . It will be the gateway from the south to the Pocono section, with Easton as a center for traffic.”
This story is part of Lehigh Valley Then, a periodic series that recalls historical headlines from lehighvalleylive.com, The Express-Times and their predecessors from 10, 20, 25, 50 and 100 years ago. Stories are pulled from microfilm at the Easton and Bethlehem area public libraries.
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Steve Novak may be reached at snovak@lehighvalleylive.com.
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