Awhile back, we published a few photos from when the Bicentennial Wagon Train Pilgrimage camped out in Lansdale, back in 1976, the year of the nation’s bicentennial. Lansdale was one of the stops along the way, as the wagons pulled in July 2 at what was then Penndale Junior High School, as it made its way to Valley Forge National Historical Park.

Running those photos in Remember When prompted Bettyanne Geikler of Harleysville to lend us her scrapbook from that time. In it she had stories and photos from The Reporter and other publications about the wagon train and other aspects of that bicentennial year.

Because of the type of scrapbook she maintained, we were not able to remove individual photos, so we opted to scan in one of the pages, which showed people at the campground at Penndale. Note that it is marked “Merck co-workers, Jack Armstrong and Gary Kester.”

Thirty-three wagons were here in Lansdale, making up the Great Lakes train. It was quite the undertaking, obviously, to have all of these branches of the wagon train make their way from their respective areas, finally meeting up at Valley Forge.

Some from the West Coast were actually on the road for a year as part of this project. Thank you, Bettyanne, for sharing this with us.