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Montville Township Historical Society
Unlocking History, Embracing Community
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Towaco Town Center Through the Ages
Towaco late 1800s
"This photo was taken from Indian Hill and looks southwest. The Morris Canal is visible as a short, white, horizontal streak across the upper center of the photo, and in the upper right the bridge that carried Pine Brook Road over the canal can just barely be made out. The Kitchell store is at the left. The road running before it is the present-day Whitehall Road, but when the photo was taken it was the Main Road because the photo shows the town before the Lackawanna Railroad’s grade separation. There are several indicators for this assessment. Whitehall Road runs diagonally from the front of the Kitchell store across the photo to the intersection with Pine Brook Road at the upper right, and Pine Brook Road can be seen to run north of the intersection to cross the railroad and link up with Waughaw Road. This connection was severed with grade separation, as was the link between Whitehall Road and Jacksonville Road. Other indicators are that only two railroad tracks are visible, and there is no Firehouse Road present, nor a bridge to carry the railroad over the non-existent road. Also, not yet present is the road (Rt. 202) on the north side of the railroad that went through what later became Towaco center and ran east of Firehouse Road to the concrete bridge over the railroad at the intersection with Barney Lane. The foregoing evidence indicates the date on the photo’s caption is correct. The location from which the photographer took this picture probably no longer exists because beginning early in the 20th century there were extensive sand and gravel excavations at the south end of Indian Hill where the photographer would have stood. By the 1950s new trees had sprung up on the steep slope left by the earliest excavation, but elsewhere excavation continued into the 1950s. The original contour of the slope could still be seen in a small portion that had not yet been dug away just to the east of the former Sinclair gas station, now the Towaco Service Center.
A couple of things are worth mentioning about what can be seen in the vicinity of the intersection of Whitehall Road and Pine Brook Road. First, a barn stands on the southwest corner of the intersection along the north side of the canal. This was part of the Van Ness coal and lumber yard. The barn was gone by 1950, but other, smaller sheds were still there, and coal was still being sold. Second, on the north side of Whitehall Road, just east of the intersection with Pinebrook Road, a small gable-ended, barnlike structure is visible that partly obscures the intersection. My mother said that at one time it served as a gas station. In the late 1940s and early 1950s it was the dwelling of a small, grubby man named Paul Pelcher. He always appeared unwashed, unshaven, and dressed in scruffy work clothes. Judging from his graying, two-day-old beard, he was probably in his fifties. His yard was littered with scattered pieces of old bedsteads and rusting machinery that betokened his occupation—a dealer in scrap metal and junk. My father had occasional dealings with him, and one time I accompanied my father inside the building. Its interior was dark and cluttered with salvaged appliances and all sorts of odds and ends that Pelcher tinkered with and repaired."
Francis T. Butts
A couple of things are worth mentioning about what can be seen in the vicinity of the intersection of Whitehall Road and Pine Brook Road. First, a barn stands on the southwest corner of the intersection along the north side of the canal. This was part of the Van Ness coal and lumber yard. The barn was gone by 1950, but other, smaller sheds were still there, and coal was still being sold. Second, on the north side of Whitehall Road, just east of the intersection with Pinebrook Road, a small gable-ended, barnlike structure is visible that partly obscures the intersection. My mother said that at one time it served as a gas station. In the late 1940s and early 1950s it was the dwelling of a small, grubby man named Paul Pelcher. He always appeared unwashed, unshaven, and dressed in scruffy work clothes. Judging from his graying, two-day-old beard, he was probably in his fifties. His yard was littered with scattered pieces of old bedsteads and rusting machinery that betokened his occupation—a dealer in scrap metal and junk. My father had occasional dealings with him, and one time I accompanied my father inside the building. Its interior was dark and cluttered with salvaged appliances and all sorts of odds and ends that Pelcher tinkered with and repaired."
Francis T. Butts
Towaco Just Before the Center was Built - c 1960s
The photo shows a sign advertising a proposed shopping center to be built in Towaco in the early 1960s. As I recall, Sam Fogelson, who ran a small grocery store in Towaco center, was behind the project. The location was to be at the northwest corner of the intersection of Rt. 202 and Indian Hill Road, opposite the current post office. In 1960 that plot of land was heavily wooded, but the land was cleared in preparation of the development. However, plans fell through, and the new shopping center was never built. In the succeeding decades the land reverted to woods.
Towaco Center c 1930s
Towaco Town Center c1930s, 1940s
The parked cars date this picture to the late 1930s or early 1940s. The streamlined Art Deco sign that says LUNCHEONETTE advertised Basch’s soda fountain, candy store, news stand, and eatery. The lettering below the sign says Country Club Ice Cream.
Towaco Town Center c1930s
n the 1950s and 1960s the plain building pictured was occupied by a factory that made crayon marking pencils. It was commonly called “the pencil factory.” In 1953 or 1954 my third grade class, taught by Miss Lynch, walked up from the school on Waughaw Road for a tour of the factory.
Francis T. Butts
Francis T. Butts
Towaco Town Center c1950s
Towaco Center c1960s
Towaco Town Center c1970s
The building at the left in the photo with the sign “Fountain Service” was the Basch’s luncheonette in the 1950s and 1960s. During the 1950s and into the 1960s the building to the right in the photo served as Towaco’s post office. According to the photo captioned “Towaco Center Fire c1975” the building that housed Basch’s luncheonette was destroyed by fire about 1975, so this photo is either from the late 1960s or early 1970s. I suspect it is from the late 1960s because in the photo captioned “Towaco Center Fire c1975” the former post office building has a new façade.
Towaco Town Center c1970s
Towaco Center Fire c1975
Two stores including a delicatessen burned. The buildings were eventually torn down and is now an open courtyard next to the Sundae's Ice Cream Parlor.
Towaco Center Post Fire c1975
Towaco Center - 4th of July Parade c1980s
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