This being the week of President’s Day, it’s appropriate to note some historical connections between our area and our nation’s presidents. The historic Hotel Fauchère in Milford, PA, shown here, has hosted or fed a number of presidents, including both Roosevelts, JFK and Warren Harding. Gifford Pinchot and Teddy Roosevelt sketched out the plan for the National Park Service (as part of the Department of the Interior) and U.S. Forest Service (as part of the Department of Agriculture) on a linen napkin at the hotel. A few days later, Pinchot’s chauffeur returned the napkin, freshly-cleaned and pressed.

Other local connections can be found at The Columns Museum, also in Milford, where resides the bloodstained, 36-star American flag that played an important role in the events at Ford’s Theatre on the night President Lincoln was assassinated in 1865; and at the Dorflinger Glass Museum in White Mills, PA, which provided glassware for the White House, starting with an order from Mary Todd Lincoln, through the Woodrow Wilson administration. It features one display case dedicated to examples of presidential glass.