Available Programs

Is your organization, club, or church group looking for a program about local history in Dauphin, Lebanon or Schuylkill Counties? Brandy M. Watts presents powerpoint presentations to local groups who are interested, for a monetary donation. Below is a listing of the presentations she has available. For more information please contact her at: historian@stonyvalley.com. For public programs Brandy is giving, please see the StonyValley.com Facebook page. The feed is open to the public, and you do not have to have Facebook to access it.

NEW! "A Journey Along the Schuylkill & Susquehanna Branch: 1900 to 1910"

This program offers a new spin on an old favorite, "A Journey Through Time on the Schuylkill & Susquehanna Railroad." Entering an era when steam trains once wound their way between the Susquehanna and Schuylkill Rivers, the sights from 1900 to 1910 along the Schuylkill & Susquehanna Branch of the Philadelphia & Reading Railroad are captured using historical as well as some present-day photographs. This program focuses on what a trip on a mixed train (train hauling both passengers and freight) was like between Dauphin, Dauphin County and Auburn, Schuylkill County on 50 miles of the 54-mile long line during this era. The railroad, which was constructed in 1849-1854 under a different name, operated until after the Great Depression when rail-traffic no longer paid to operate the line. Throughout its history, 26 stations and communities in Dauphin, Lebanon and Schuylkill Counties in Pennsylvania popped upon along the line as well as various industries; 22 of the stations will be visited with this presentation.

The 30-minute program, "A Journey Along the Schuylkill & Susquehanna Branch: 1900 to 1910," offers a glimpse into the past as though you were seated on a train travelling from one end of the line to the other through approximately 35 slides.

“Ruins In The Wilderness: The Coal Mining Patch Towns of Stoney Valley”

Using photographs of present-day as well as a spattering of historical ones, this program focuses on the story of four former coal mining communities in Pennsylvania: Rattling Run, Dauphin County and Yellow Spring, Rausch Gap and Gold Mine, Lebanon County. These communities located in Stoney Valley, part of the second largest roadless wilderness tract of land in Pennsylvania, were owned by the Dauphin & Susquehanna Coal Company, who later constructed a railroad to the coal mines. When the mines played out, the communities started to die as well. Today, all that remains are ruins of the once prosperous region that held as many as 2,000 inhabitants in the mid-1800s.
The 45-minute program, “Ruins In The Wilderness: The Coal Mining Patch Towns of Stoney Valley,” offers a guided tour from your seat of the remains of these four communities through approximately 135 slides of what was once there and can still be found today.

NEW! "Stoney Valley: A Haunting History"

Witches, ghosts and other supernatural phenomenon help to shape the history of Stoney Valley in the 30-minute program, “Stoney Valley: A Haunting History.” Tucked away in the Kittaninny Mountains of Dauphin and Lebanon Counties, Pennsylvania, some odd occurrences have happened there throughout the years. Everything from a supposed witch, to headless ghosts and even a few murders helped to shape the seedier side of history in Stoney Valley.
Discover local history from the region's first settlers to its current ownership under the Pennsylvania Game Commission with ten different stories about the supernatural events and beings of Stoney Valley’s past, all which have their documented part in the area’s heritage.

"Rausch Gap"

The former nineteenth century coal mining and railroading community of Rausch Gap, Lebanon County sits along the present-day Stony Valley Rail-Trail in State Game Lands No. 211. This community, which contains over 135 ruins and a small cemetery was once once home to more than 1,000 inhabitants during the Schuylkill & Susquehanna Railroad's heyday in the mid-1850s. Today the homes and businesses of yesteryear are nothing more than piles of stone in the wilderness.
The 30-minute program, "Rausch Gap," explores these ruins through approximately 100 slides depicting how the former community looks today.