Font ResizeThat's been the month that heroes have left the community after a productive visit, come home after fighting the good fight or been honored in death.
June has also been a time that enemy soldiers and floodwaters have invaded the county and workmen with mules and hammers have raided York's square in the middle of the night for some heavy-duty demolition work.
These sometimes controversial pivotal moments may be seen as good or bad at the time, but they often spell change for the better - events that challenge the status quo.
Will the return of baseball to York be one of those June watershed moments?
Will the new stadium stick as a symbolic intersection of York's downtown renaissance?
Will it link the Northwest Triangle project, new businesses and high-end housing and a draw for suburbanites to visit a reviving downtown?
Much is riding on baseball's success, but pivotal moments often aren't easy.
A scene from York's past with parallels to the return of baseball came in 1887.
York had just become a city with a mayor. The city wanted to, well, represent itself as a city. York was afire with the Industrial Revolution, and goods and people
But two tottering market sheds, occupants of that prime site for decades, stood in the way.
It was the classic battle of agrarianism, represented by the market sheds, versus industry, the developers of the day.
It was the old way against the new.
The fight became heated, nasty and political. And the community resorted to backroom collusion to thaw the standoff.
That involved pulling down the sheds in the middle of the night before pesky injunctions and courts could scuttle such an effort.
A comparison between the market shed demolition and the return of baseball as a catalyst for downtown rebirth is not exact.
Clearly, the stadium project has been well-aired publicly, and the only middle-of-the-night action has come from team officials who must have lost sleep pondering if the stadium would be ready for baseball today.
But the comparison still works.
It was simply time, 120 years ago, for the square to be free of squawking hens and stinking pigs.
Farmers had other options. At least two huge covered market houses - Farmers and City markets - were busy. The Central Market would open the next year.
Just as it was time for the market sheds to come down, it's now time for the leadoff batter to step up to the plate. Just as in the 1880s, the sometimes controversial stadium project is a battle between the status quo - or worse - and the need to move ahead.
The downtown needs such a bold symbol, a keystone to connect pieces of the downtown revitalization puzzle and to form a meeting place between the city and the rest of the county.
This moment could be long remembered as a catalyst for positive change.
The timing is right.
If pivotal moments are going to occur in York, bet on June. James McClure is editor of the York Daily Record/Sunday News. He has written five books on county history. To contact him, call 771-2000, or e-mail jem@ ydr.com
LATE JUNE EVENTS
1778 - Continental Congress exits York County after a nine-month stay. Impact: Created long-standing bragging rights to key moments in the development of the early republic.
1834 - Townspeople observe Marquis de Lafayette's funeral locally several weeks after his burial in France. Impact: Frenchman and two-time York visitor was last man standing from glory days of American Revolution.
1863 - The Confederate Army enters the county and occupies a surrendered York for about two days. Impact: Sheepish surrender moment overshadowed true war-time sacrifices - a trend that is now reversing itself. Meanwhile, fighting in Hanover and Wrightsville gave those communities rallying points.
1887 - Opponents of rickety market sheds in York's Centre Square demolish structures. Impact: The sheds represented old agrarian economy and obstructed movement of goods in burgeoning years of Industrial Revolution.
1945 - Four-star Gen. Jacob Loucks Devers, fresh from his service during the Allied invasion of France and Germany, receives hero reception in his hometown. Impact: Devers' achievements put exclamation point on all-out county effort on war front and home front.
1972 - Tropical Storm Agnes drops 16 inches of rain, causing millions of dollars in property damage and claiming at least four lives. Impact: Cleanup in York, accomplished with unprecedented pursuit of state and federal dollars, aided long-blighted areas and introduced urban homesteading.
