As I’m from Conshohocken, PA, I got interested in the history of it in the recent past, with books like this one, as well as other books, events, and web sites hosted by Jack and Brian Coll of Coll’s Custom Framing.
Conshohocken is a small town with a big name, and even bigger history. Having had it’s place in the industrial revolution, Conshohocken, or “Conshy”, was known for immigrants, and industry; including (but not limited to) steel, textiles, surgical supplies, and tires. (It was also known for supposedly having a record for most churches, bars, and funeral homes in a square mile, or something like that?) ANYWAY, a notable figure in that history was J. Ellwood Lee, a Conshohocken native-turned-inventor who was awarded a number of patents, earlier with surgical supplies he started making in his attic, and later to rubber, eventually founding the Lee Tire Company.
Of course, I’m really summarizing here, as it would take me a month to type up the full history of Conshohocken and Lee, nor am I expert. Jack and Brian Coll would probably qualify, as well as peeps from the Conshohocken Historical Society.
With all the success, Lee built a house at 8th Avenue and Fayette Street (aka Main Street) in Conshohocken called “Leeland”. The house is notably large, with an outbuilding behind it, of which I understand was originally the game room (casino?) and bowling alley.
The house has quite a history, including acting as the “Borough Hall” for many years, with the outbuilding doing duties as the police station. In recent years, a new Borough Hall was erected from the skeleton of an old Bell Telephone Building that kept it’s baby blue 1950’s facia until 2014, and LeeLand was sold off, to become an event space called the Leeland Room.
That said, it’s somewhat uncommon to find Conshohocken ephemera that ISN’T a Lee Tire Ad, or a model of a Conshohocken Fire Truck, so I snagged this postcard of Leeland Mansion, postmarked 1917.
House still exists today as of 2020.
It’s not my only Conshohocken postcard (I guess I neglected to post some others!), and I have some other interesting pieces of ephemera I’ll hopefully post in the near future.
If you have a Conshohocken or Lee fact or memory you’d like to share, please post up in the comments below!