Postcards, Posters, and Other Vintage Travel Images #5
Shepard of the Hills Tourist Camp, Van, Pa (vintage postcard)1
Other than this vintage postcard, there is no online information that I could find on this early 20th century tourist, which appears, in the image, to have had a store and a gas station in addition to the campground.
Van, Pennsylvania is a populated place in the Township of Cranberry in Vendango County, where US 322, Lakes to Sea Highway crosses East Sandy Creek. Besides a few houses, Van United Methodist Church and Van Road, there is very little to Van.2,3,4,5
- “Shepard of the Hill Tourist Camp, Van Pa., on Lakes to Sea Highway, Route 322.” Card. “Tichnor Quality Views,” Reg. U. S. Pat. Off. Made Only by Tichnor Bros., Inc., Boston, Mass., [ca. 1930–1945]. Digital Commonwealth, ark.digitalcommonwealth.org/ark:/50959/tb09jq70j (accessed December 28, 2017).
- Van – PA HomeTownLocator
- Van – Geographic Names Information System
- Van – Google Maps
- Using Google Street View, I explored up and down US 322 looking for any visible indications of the tourist camp. I also used Google Satellite images to inspect US 322 and Van Road.
Postcards, Posters, and Other Vintage Travel Images is a Haw Creek project that shares vintage travel related images that, for the most part, have been found on line.
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Perhaps it was the popularity — at the time — of the book Shepherd of the Hills that inspired the name used by this early campground. The book by Harold Bell Wright is often credited as the impetus of growth establishing modern day Branson MO as a major midwest tourist destination. With people flocking here to see the locations that inpired the (fictional) drama, almost every local business tried to capitalize on the book’s title by using that phrase in the business name, i.e. “Shepherd of the Hills (whatever)” Some–in an attempt to avoid blatant plagiarization, used variations of spelling, or simply deleted “of the” shortening their business name to “Shepherd Hills xyz;” xyz being whatever the business was, bookstore, realtor, plumber, etc.
Sadly this tradition ended a few years ago when the marketing groups rebranded this region as “Ozark Mountain Country.” So while there are a few businesses in the region still using the title, it is in no way as prominent as it was just a few decades ago.
I knew about the Branson Shepherd of the Hills and the Harold Bell Wright book.
I suspect, though, that that there is no connection with the Pennsylvania tourist camp with the similar name.
There are a number of other places, all churches as far as I can tell, named Shepherd of the Hills in Pennsylvania.
∙∙∙ Shepherd of the Hills United Church of Christ in Bechtelsville PA. (This congregation is over 150 years old)
∙∙∙ Shepherd of the Hills Lutheran Church in Egypt PA
∙∙∙ Shepherd of the Hills Lutheran Church in Karthaus PA
∙∙∙ Shepherd of the Hills Lutheran Church in Whitehall PA
∙∙∙ Shepherd of the Hills Lutheran Church in Dushore PA
∙∙∙ Shepherd of the Hills Lutheran Church in Mildred, PA
∙∙∙ Shepherd of the Hills Church in Sassamansville PA.
There are also churches of the same name in Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Illinois, Maryland, Minnesota, Texas, and Wisconsin, many of them Lutheran. There is a Shepherd of the Hills Children’s Home in Zambales, Philippines.
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