Lumberman and Civic Leader
Harrison was a founder of the "Tyoga Lumber Company" which owned large tracts of land for timber and coal in Nicholas County, West Virginia, as well as land in Michigan, Newfoundland, and Pennsylvania. Harrison owned a substantial amount of land in the Pine Creek Gorge. In the 1890s Harrison operated a sawmill on Pine Creek at Tiadaghton in the middle of the gorge. This mill was supplied with logs, not by train as was most common in that era, but by a log slide built into the side of the gorge. The log slide was used on a year round basis: during the winter the logs slid down on ice; following the snowmelt the slide was greased to ease the descent of the logs.
Harrison served as first president of the Wellsborough Electric Company, which was incorporated on April 11, 1894. In August 1896 Harrison was chosen president of the First National Bank of Wellsboro. He also served as clerk and burgess for the borough of Wellsboro and served for more than forty years as a school director there. Harrison helped rebuild the Wellsboro Penn Hotel in the 1920s. He was a major supporter and leader of the Wellsboro Presbyterian Church.
Read more about this topic: Leonard Harrison
Famous quotes containing the words civic and/or leader:
“But look what we have built ... low-income projects that become worse centers of delinquency, vandalism and general social hopelessness than the slums they were supposed to replace.... Cultural centers that are unable to support a good bookstore. Civic centers that are avoided by everyone but bums.... Promenades that go from no place to nowhere and have no promenaders. Expressways that eviscerate great cities. This is not the rebuilding of cities. This is the sacking of cities.”
—Jane Jacobs (b. 1916)
“The intelligent employer encourages challenge, questioning—not blind acceptance and “our Leader knows best” acclaim.”
—Mary Barnett Gilson (1877–?)