“Zug’s Corner,” 1860

Jacob Zug was born near Elizabethtown in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania in 1793 and arrived in Carlisle in 1823, having farmed just east of the town.  He purchased this lot near the square on East High Street from Nicholas Uhlerick in 1835.  In 1859 Zug demolished the stone tavern that had stood there for decades – known as “the Sign of the Golden Lamb” – and replaced it with a new brick three story commercial building.  This structure now stands on the site with the address 2 East High Street.

Zug’s enterprise and the store’s central location next to the Market made it successful and the complex of properties became know locally as “Zug’s Corner.” The 1860 census valued Zug’s real estate at $37,000 and his personal estate at $3,500.  Zug was involved in local politics and had been elected county commissioner is 1835.  He married Elizabeth Kimmel and had six children, including a son John who graduated from the local Dickinson College and became an attorney and temperance activist before his early death in September 1843.  Another son, Jacob, served as a lieutenant in the Seventh Reserves during the Civil War and lost an arm at the Battle of Fredericksburg.

Jacob Zug died in 1877 and J. P. Bixler later purchased the property at 2 East High Street at a public sale for $20,000.  Bixler’s Hardware store became a twentieth century fixture on the site until the county seized it in 1984.  The structure was scheduled for demolition to make way for the extension of the new courthouse but was saved after local protest.  It now fronts the extension and serves as county offices.

Kirsten Lynd, Brenna McKelvey, and Rebecca Solnit