New mural underway in Hanover honors Lincoln’s 1863 stop in the borough

If you’ve driven on East Middle Street in Hanover Borough, you’ve likely noticed the massive new mural underway on the side of a Hanover business.

The mural, on the side of 501 East Middle Street in Hanover Borough, is set to celebrate Hanover’s history while relating to the metal products the business inside casts, said Roland Bohrer.

Bohrer co-owns Metalgod Casting & Fabrication, a small Hanover-based foundry, along with his son, Luke Bohrer.

The 72-foot-long mural, commissioned by Bohrer and painted by local artist Lise Miller, celebrates president Abraham Lincoln’s train ride through the borough on Nov. 18, 1863, as he headed to Gettysburg to give what we now know as the Gettysburg Address.

On his trip through Hanover, Lincoln’s train passed through the same tracks that flank the building, with the train reportedly stopping at Hanover’s train station on Railroad Street for eight minutes as the president briefly spoke with locals.

More: Lincoln delivered little-known Hanover Address

Lincoln would pass by on those tracks a second time on his return trip to Washington, D.C., but reportedly did not stop.

“I love the history of Hanover,” said Bohrer, who wanted to celebrate that history while bringing color and interest to what would overwise be another bare factory wall.

Painting history

Not long after purchasing the building, Bohrer saw the long wall facing the train tracks, and thought to himself, “maybe I’ll put a mural on that some day.”

Several years later, Bohrer happened to run into Miller by chance while she was painting a different mural, and spontaneously proposed the collaboration to her.

For Miller, a professional painter, the project is her largest mural yet. Miller is an avid mural artist, creating murals on the inside and outside of buildings for private customers, businesses and communities.

Measuring over 72 feet in length by over 12 feet tall, the mural is set to take up much of the building’s northern face.

It’s not the first time that Miller has had to rely on a stepladder, though, as she completed a large mural honoring Kralltown in northern York County that required her to work off scaffolding in 2017.

For a mural of this size, Miller said she typically begins with a sketch, which she then divides into quadrants that correspond, when scaled up, to the same quadrants on the side of the building.

The mural, based on the train that carried Lincoln, took some research, with Miller and Bohrer looking through old photographs to bring Lincoln’s train to life. Without color photography in existence at the time, some artistic interpretation was undertaken, with brilliant hues of red and gold adorning the mural.

When finished, the mural will also feature the company’s name, Metalgod Casting, in the smoke puffing out of the train.

A unique challenge of mural painting, however, is facing the elements outdoors. Due to the cold winter temperatures, Miller recently paused work on the mural around Nov. 18, with painting set to resume in the spring of 2025.

To protect the mural from vandals and the elements while awaiting warmer weather, Bohrer added layers of clear coat overtop of the 2024 progress.

‘Back to life’

After purchasing the building for their company in 2017, Bohrer and his son have been working to restore the property, which Bohrer says they found in rough shape.

“We’re just trying to bring it back to life,” said Bohrer, who has worked to restore the property’s landscaping and exterior, even carefully restoring a unique brick sidewalk along East Middle Street.

That effort has run into some hiccups, though, as vandals frequently smashed windows along the train tracks next to the building.

Bohrer, after replacing over 300 small glass panes in those windows due to vandalism, decided to replace many of those windows with aluminum panels, which will be put on hinges after the mural is completed.

“We did that just so we won’t need to keep replacing windows,” said Bohrer.

While the business currently works primarily out of their foundry located on Pleasant Street in the borough, the company is looking to move more operations into the bigger East Middle Street location.

It’s no surprise that Bohrer has an interest in history, as his business is in a unique position to preserve it.

The small specialty foundry focuses on hand-made, low-volume casting with a process that remains true to the history of the art, and has done work for Arlington National Cemetery as well as the White House, Bohrer said.

The foundry also produces historic train signs, as well as pieces for model trains, Bohrer said, partially inspiring the mural’s train-centric theme.

In just another testament to Bohrer’s love of history, Bohrer is also currently restoring Hanover’s iconic Iron Mike dog statue free-of-cost.

More: Iron Mike: Hanover metal worker has a dogged determination to restore the iconic statue

This article originally appeared on Hanover Evening Sun: What’s the story behind the train mural on Middle Street in Hanover?