Chief of Police Vance put police officers in charge of the traffic light controls at four important intersections on September 1st, 1926, changing how traffic moved through a busy stretch of Delaware County. The new order covered Fifth and Market streets, Seventh and Sproul streets, Seventh Street and Edgmont Avenue, and Ninth Street and Edgmont Avenue.
The move mattered because it shifted control from a fixed system to officers on the street, giving police direct control over the flow at four points at once. Motorists and pedestrians were said to be responding favorably that day, though the record leaves one basic question unanswered: how long the police-run setup stayed in place after the order went into effect.
That gap is part of what makes September 1st useful as a date in local history. The change was described as a success, but the only evidence offered is the reaction of motorists and pedestrians, not any traffic counts, accident figures, or follow-up order. The result is a brief snapshot of a city trying a hands-on fix and judging it by immediate impressions.
Another September 1st item in the county record lands 25 years later, when John F. Bauer died at 9.58 a.m. in 1951, at age 69, after being ill for 2½ years. Bauer had retired the year before as secretary to Republican leader John J. McClure, and his own summation of his life was simple: he said he had a full, enjoyable life.
For readers looking back on September 1st, the date connects a local traffic experiment with a personal ending and, in another year, a chase that led one 23-year-old Chester man through Clifton Heights, Springfield, Morton, Swarthmore, Chester and Upper Chichester before he was cited for at least 28 violations. The common thread is how quickly one day can hold both routine decisions and consequences that still read as news decades later.
