Historic Strasburg

Historic Strasburg. Stop 2. , The Fire Department Building was erected in 1951 in honor of local veterans of all wars. From the 1890s, the first firehouse and Town Office stood here in a modest wooden structure known as "the sheep shed". It was the home of Massanutten Hose Company No. 1. In 1908, seventeen members of Co. 1 became the World Champion Reel Racers. Teams contended to win the speed record for connecting hose to hydrant and water to fire. The hose was mounted on a reel (now in the Strasburg Museum) and pulled by hand. Their record time was 27 1/12 seconds!, Today's Box Office Brewery at 177 E. King Street, next door to your right, was built in 1918 as The Strand Theater, the first theater in Strasburg. An evening's fare included a new chapter of an adventure series, a cartoon, a newsreel and the exciting feature film. The cost, was 25 cents for adults and 15 cents for children. The Strand's name changed to the Strasburg Theater in the 1930s and served as the town's only movie theater until 1948, when the Home Theater opened further west on King Street. The Strasburg Theater operated until about 1955. You may visit Box Office Brewery and see many items of memorabilia exhibited there including numerous movie posters from 1933-1934. Original local landscape murals, revealed when the building underwent renovation, are featured on the walls of the brewery., Notice the elaborately carved brackets and cornices of the buildings at 133 and 148 E. King Street. They are outstanding examples of early Valley storefronts with second-story porches., In the 1930s downtown Strasburg bustled with activity. Merchants stayed open as late as midnight on Saturdays to serve area farmers. The streets were filled with people, horses and automobiles. This busy main street had four groceries, two car dealerships, a theater, four service stations, two banks, the new post office, three jewelry stores, a millinery shop (all women wore hats), a bowling alley, two drug stores, a bus depot, a large department store, barber shops, other retail and manufacturing businesses and some very fine restaurants., (Captions):, King Street looking west, 1914, Strasburg Volunteer Fire Department World Champion Reel Racing Team, 1900, To reach Stop 3 go left on King Street, turn right on N. Holliday Street, and continue to the sign at the end of the block. , 170 North Holliday Street