Where the Red Arrow ended, a new look

Change is coming to Strafford, at the corner of Lancaster Avenue and Sugartown Road

STRAFFORD - In the early 20th century Strafford was the end of the line for the Philadephia & Western “Red Arrow” trolley from 69th street.

The single car rambled on the electrified line for 11 miles, roughly following the Lancaster Turnpike, curving behind the old Braxton house and what would become the Mile Post Inn, dead-ending just off Sugartown Road.

The Red Arrow spur to Strafford was discontinued in the 1950s, but life of that corner went on, as the Mile Post, the Braxton house, and the old Covered Wagon Inn, which most recently hosted the Main Lion Ribit, changed hands and names.

With the opening of a new brewhouse restaurant and the imminent demolition of the Mile Post, the intersection of Lancaster Avenue and Sugartown Road is getting a new face.

The most dramatic change juts out of what was until 1995 was the Rib-it. A sleek, beige and glass addition has been built onto the old stone restaurant. On Wednesday, it will open as John Havard’s Brewhouse, where patrons can eat full-course meals near a row of stainless-steel beer vats.

The Boston-based company poured more than a million dollars into renovating the Rib-it, CEO Grenville Byford said. Up to nine different beers, from light American lager to Russian imperial stout, will be on tap at any given time.

“We hope a wide spectrum of people will feel comfortable there.” Byford said. “People in jeans and T-shirts will sit next to people in expensive suits and ties.”

The Rib-it had reached its heyday in the late 1980s, when John Braxton, of Braxton’s Animal Works across the street remembered it as a “kind of hot nightspot,” a Villanova University hangout with big crowds and live bands every weekend.

The Rib-it popularity was short-lived, but in its previous incarnation - as the Covered Wagon - it featured the big band music and high energy of post-World War II crowds.

Anne Kirkpatrick, who has lived in the area since the 1930s said she remembered when the Covered Wagon was a popular spot for men and women in uniform.

“I used to go there after the war when I used to be taken out for a drink or two,” she said coyly. “I remember going in there and running into girls I had known in the WAVEs.”

C. Herbert Fry, of Berwyn, said he remembered when a small dance floor had been added onto the Covered Wagon, where couples could swing to “Back Beat Boogie” or “You Made Me Love You.”

“The Henry James Band of the 1950s booked into there when big bands were disappearing over the horizon,” Fry said.

Just up Lancaster Avenue from John Havard’s brewhouse sits the vacant Mile Post Inn, it splintered window panes and curled white paint evidence of the restaurant’s closing in 1994.

The new owner, DSSC Limited Partnership, which also owns the Kmart next door, plans to tear down the building eventually and incorporate the small lot into the shopping center behind it.

The building that the Mile Post Inn filled for 15 years was erected in the 1940s. It was known under different names over the years, including the Lamplighter and the Midshipman, and became a standby for older singles in search of cocktails and an affordable meal.

Almost beside the Mile Post, just across Lancaster Avenue from the new brewhouse, the J. M. Sorkin rug store inhabited the stone and white brick of what was once a home for the Braxton family.

The Braxtons still own the nearby 300-year-old building, as well as the pet-supply store next door. With no plans to renovate it, the Braxton house may be the last structure at the corner to remain substantially as it was, with a few subtle additions, when the Red Arrow shuttled to old Strafford.

by Anika M. Scott, Inquirer Correspondent, Philadelphia Inquirer, 2/2/1997.

Found by Meg Wiederseim

Note: Red Arrow Ticket Agency Sign