If you’ve been looking to learn a little history about law enforcement in the North Penn Area, or would like to look back on some history as Lansdale Police Chief Joseph McGuriman ends his tenure here, keep your calendar open for Tuesday night.

Starting at 7:30 p.m. that night, the Lansdale Historical Society will present its second Community Program of 2009, all about the area’s past and present “Men in Blue.”

It will be held in the Lansdale Parks and Recreation Building, Lansdale Avenue and Seventh Street.

“As far as I know, we have pictures of almost every former police chief from Lansdale, North Wales, Montgomery Township, Hatfield borough and township, Upper Gwynedd township and Towamencin township,” said LHS member Marti Drumheller.

Drumheller has been researching and gathering photos for months on all of those local “Men in Blue.”

She’ll narrate the program Tuesday night, and LHS photo archivist Steve Moyer will run an accompanying video presentation showing just who those men were.

“We have tons and tons of photos of police officers and chiefs down through the years in this area, starting with the very earliest policemen, at the times when local municipalities got the idea to have their own law enforcement back in the early 20th century,” said LHS President Dick Shearer.

Back in those days, Lansdale was approximately the size North Wales is today, and the surrounding municipalities could typically be covered by just one police officer, Shearer said.

“In fact, they were probably one-man part-time departments, because if something happened in town, almost everybody worked there in town, so if they were needed, that officer was suddenly ‘on duty,’” he said.

That duty was primarily on foot patrol, since the traffic so common in the area today was nowhere to be seen back then. Police vehicles, and cars for civilians, didn’t become popular until several decades after the police forces were formed.

“In fact, we have a picture of the Five Points intersection in Montgomeryville that was probably taken around 1930 or ’31, and there’s one car in the intersection and no people to be seen,” Shearer said.

“That corner was controlled by a stop sign, and you could lay down and take a nap in the middle of the road and nothing would hit you,” he said. “If you look down Horsham Road, the only thing you see is just fields, so you really didn’t need a whole lot of police.”

Tracing back the history of Lansdale’s police presence, Drumheller uncovered photos of a police constable in the late 1890s, and his replacement, Charles S. Kulp, became the borough’s first official police chief.

To help share the memories of days past, Drumheller has invited several past and current police chiefs to Tuesday’s program.

Former Chiefs Wallace Hendricks of Lansdale Borough and Robert Freed of Upper Gwynedd have expressed interest in attending, she said, as have present Chiefs Richard Brady of Montgomery Township and Mark Toomey of Hatfield Township.

Each of the former chiefs has already been given three questions by Drumheller, so they will discuss and share their answers and experiences throughout the presentation.

“We’re also hoping to have some of the first police women from our area there, because we don’t have a lot of police women around here. We’re hoping that one from Hatfield Township who is now their first female sergeant will be there, and we know the granddaughter of one of the former chiefs and the daughter of our first official police women will be there,” Drumheller said.

“Also, Towamencin started their department with seven men originally, and three of them should be there if everything goes right,” she said.

The LHS presentation will be held at the Lansdale Parks and Recreation Building, located at Lansdale Avenue and Seventh Street.

There is no admission charge, but donations will be accepted, and the performance will be recorded for later sale as a DVD.

For more information, visit www.LansdaleHistory.org or call (215) 855-1872.