Starting February 17, discovering Harrisburg’s rich history will be easier than ever. The new Harrisburg Historical website and mobile app bring the stories of the Capital Region’s people and places to life.
Drawing from primary and secondary sources, Harrisburg Historical features place-based storytelling from Harrisburg’s early days to the present. App users can explore history through engaging short- and long-form stories, tours, archival images, audio, video and interactive maps –– all through an accessible website and app.
Among the many stories featured is Harrisburg’s State Hospital. Opened in 1851, the hospital pioneered moral and compassionate approaches to mental health. Other stories highlight figures like K. Leroy Irvis, the city’s first Black Speaker of the House, who fought racial segregation in court after facing discrimination, and Mira Dock, whose conservation efforts spurred the City Beautiful Movement, an initiative aimed at improving Harrisburg’s urban greenspaces. Users can also encounter key landmarks, including A Gathering at the Crossroads Monument, erected in 2020 to celebrate the passage of the Fifteenth and Nineteenth Amendments of the Constitution and the achievements of Harrisburg’s Black community in their fight for equal rights.
The platform also includes curated tours that trace the evolution of the city’s ongoing quest for civil rights. One tour, The Chester Way Walking Tour of the Capitol Complex, spans ten locations that date from 1850 to 2020, guiding visitors through sites important to Harrisburg’s long quest for civil rights movement and the Old Eighth Ward, the multiethnic community demolished during the early twentieth-century expansion of the Capitol Complex.
Content is developed, researched, written and edited by Messiah University students, faculty and staff as well as local historians and community partners. Over twenty students and alumni majoring in English, History, Politics, Spanish, Film and Media Arts and HDFS researched, wrote and created multimedia content for the first 25 stories.
A product of the Digital Harrisburg Initiative, Harrisburg Historical is produced and managed by Messiah University’s Center for Public Humanities and the Department of History, Politics and International Relations.
The project was made possible through funding from Messiah University’s Center for Public Humanities and a grant from the Council of Independent Colleges. Local historians, institutions and community stakeholders, including the Historical Society of Dauphin County, the Pennsylvania State Archives and the Commonwealth Monument Project provided research support.
Visit the website https://harrisburghistorical.org or download the Harrisburg Historical mobile app for IOS or Android.
Homepage of Harrisburg Historical
Description of The Chester Way Walking Tour of the Capitol Complex