Tannery At Shrewsbury Station

Tannery At Shrewsbury Station. "Horse Heaven". , You are standing where the railroad station once sat in the town of Shrewsbury Station. Arriving on the train in July 1863, you would have been overwhelmed by the acrid smoke and foul stench pouring from Frederick Helb's leather tannery and rendering factory, located directly across the railroad tracks., For raw materials for his operations, Helb bought old, worn-out horses and mules from local farms and processed the hides after they died. With the coming of the Civil War, he had an abundant new source of hides., After the Battle of Gettysburg (July 1-3, 1863), countless dead horses and mules dotted the Pennsylvania landscape where the armies had roamed during the campaign, victims of battle action, accidents, and punishing usage. During the weeks that followed, Helb sent out teams to gather dead horses and mules., The tannery operations eventually expanded to process 7,000 hides per year, most then shipped to customers on the railway. So many hides were processed that local residents called the area "Horse Heaven.", As industry and population grew after the Civil War, Shrewsbury Station was incorporated as the Borough of Railroad in 1871., The stone retaining wall behind you is all that remains from a mill that processed tree bark to produce chemicals to tan the leather., (captions) , The station house is at upper right, and the shed for the bark mill at top center. From A Brief History of Railroad Borough by Robert H. Shaub., Over 5,000 horses and mules died during the Battle of Gettysburg. Courtesy library of Congress, The tannery is the building with twin smokestacks at the upper left. Photograph circa 1870. - Collection of Robert L. Williams