Basic Information
- Type of Place
- Independent City or Town
- Metro Area
- Politics c. 1860?
- Don’t Know
- Unions, Organized Labor?
- Don’t Know
Sundown Town Status
- Sundown Town in the Past?
- Probable
- Was there an ordinance?
- Perhaps, Some Oral Evidence
- Sign?
- Perhaps, Some Oral Evidence
- Year of Greatest Interest
- Still Sundown?
- Probably
Census Information
| Total | White | Black | Asian | Native | Hispanic | Other | BHshld | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1860 | ||||||||
| 1870 | ||||||||
| 1880 | ||||||||
| 1890 | 3,717 | 28 | ||||||
| 1900 | 5302 | 5269 | 32 | |||||
| 1910 | ||||||||
| 1920 | 8664 | 8 | ||||||
| 1930 | 1770 | 3 | ||||||
| 1940 | ||||||||
| 1950 | ||||||||
| 1960 | ||||||||
| 1970 | ||||||||
| 1980 | ||||||||
| 1990 | ||||||||
| 2000 | ||||||||
| 2010 | ||||||||
| 2020 |
Method of Exclusion
- Threat of Violence
- Private Bad Behavior
- Reputation
Main Ethnic Group(s)
- German Protestant
- German Catholic
- Unknown
Group(s) Excluded
- Black
Comments
A teacher from the area whose parents grew up in Hanover said that the town was all white until very recently. She remembered a minor race riot during the late 1980s or early 1990s involving black youths talking to some white girls in the town square. Some white youths took issue with the encounter, and a fight ensued. She added that the fight was reported in the local newspaper – the Evening Sun. She is not sure how they kept blacks out for so long, but is still surprised when she sees a black person in Hanover.
The teacher also said that there was a Klan presence in Lancaster County during the mid-1900s, and recently Klan members have tried to come back to Lancaster for a rally. She remarked that the Klan didn’t end up coming back to Hanover, but instead went to nearby Quarryville where the residents were more sympathetic to their activities.
The teacher also said that defacto segregation was and is stronger in sectors of Bucks, Montgomery, Berks, Lancaster etc., then it was in 1955, “The mindset is and was “segregation” was a Southern problem. This is akin to Germans and Austrians proclaiming “that we knew zilch about the annihilation of their fellow Jewish neighbors ultimate fate during “the War Daze und ve vere nitch members uf das partie…”
A woman at Shippensburg University who grew up in Hanover Township said that there were no blacks in any of the three school districts in the area, nor in McSherrystown’s Catholic school system. She said that in 6th grade, c.1972, a black family moved in, but only stayed for a week. She also said that from what she had heard, “in the 1950s signs were up at the edge of town, telling blacks not to live there – Logically, since lots of blacks live in nearby York and Gettysburg.”
The women also remembered a big uproar when blacks dated some white girls.