Keystone Cruisers Chapter History

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate
links, including eBay, Amazon, Skimlinks, and others.

PVCsnorkel

PVCsnorkel

Joined
Jul 9, 2022
Threads
36
Messages
267
Location
Lehigh Valley, PA
Website
www.instagram.com
I've been finding old bits of history about the club here and there, so a club history thread seems relevant.
I will be posting phots of the 1998 Toyota trails report from the chapter in here shortly. I went down a rabbit hole of old YouTube videos of the club today, so I'll start there.

If anyone has any notes, stories, pictures, etc... to add please do!
 
All the general club videos I could find, a lot of them are from @Pacer


Coal Miner Cruiser Classics 2006-2022
 
pretty sure Pacer just recently wrote an article for TT about the history of the club.

i forget what year i joined the club.....97 or 98 maybe.
 
Doesn't seem like it was that long ago.
"Dave" is gone...passed a year or so ago now.

20260328_085849.webp
 
PVCsnorkel said:
If anyone has any notes, stories, pictures, etc... to add please do!
Click to expand...

Gary @shmukster would be a good guy to talk to abut the club history. He's been around quite a while.

There are tons of photos, and videos on this page, you'll just have to dig. Might help to search, wheel, wheeling, club run, etc to find the threads.

A lot of the club runs over the past ten years have been documented, more or less.
 
Keystone Cruisers Chapter Report
Toyota Trails; March/April 1998
Ken Johannsen is listed as the contact in the directory. Is that who wrote the article?

20260330_122456.webp
20260330_122039.webp
20260330_122056.webp
20260330_122102.webp

20260330_122107.webp
 
Not written by ken
The 3000 acre thing never came to be iirc.
The guy had more money than God, and switched interests more often than underwear.
 
Last edited:
brian said:
Not written by ken
The 3000 acre thing never came to be iirc.
The guy had more money than God, and switched interests more often than underwear.
Click to expand...
That's a shame, Rausch is 3000 acres so that would've been a nice spot.
Rich people are always weird, my friend works at a high end import shop and the stories from his clients are something else.
 
The Keystone Cruisers group from 1998 has no connection at all with our current Keystone Cruisers. I don't think any of the guys I know today were involved with that group. Other than Brian I don't think I knew any of those guys.
I'll check some dates with Jeff Dozier to put what I'm going to say in an accurate time frame but the current club actually started out as the Appalachian Cruisers. Some guys who were involved beside me were Craig Merkey, Andy Zook, Matt Reed, and Jeff Dozier. I haver some card s from the club that says I am the vice president! I also still have the large banner that we would unfurl at get togethers. I remember meeting at he little camping area adjacent to the old office at Rausch Creek near where the steep hill climbs are located. Appalachian Land Cruisers died a slow death when Dozier moved to Kentucky (where he is still very active in offroading and drives an FJ45 that he got from me) and was replaced by out current Keystone Cruisers. Keystone was very active for a lot of years I'd say we had eight club runs per year on average and we always supported the Coal Mine event. I usually did the trail ride updates while others took pictures or video.
 
shmukster said:
The Keystone Cruisers group from 1998 has no connection at all with our current Keystone Cruisers. I don't think any of the guys I know today were involved with that group. Other than Brian I don't think I knew any of those guys.
I'll check some dates with Jeff Dozier to put what I'm going to say in an accurate time frame but the current club actually started out as the Appalachian Cruisers.
Click to expand...
Was the Appalachian Cruisers a TLCA chapter? When did the clubs switch?
 
Here's one of my old cards for reference. I don't remember the club being affiliated with TLCA. I did contact Jeff let's see what input he'll be able to contribute. And I do believe that the Tower City wheeling site referenced in the article really is what is now Rausch Creek. I can remember back when we had two wheeling venues to choose from- Paragon and Rausch Creek!!!!
Club card 1.webp
 
Hey guys I always enjoyed my days in PA and the cruiser community. When I started emailing people in the area about getting together it was around 2004/5. Since a club existed previously and I was given the contact info from Jennifer at TLCA of members living in PA, it was not too hard to generate interest. We did many East Coast Pig Runs in those days, collaborated with Capital City Land Cruiser and Gotham City for trail rides of course... We met up for food and drinks some times but PA geographically is a large state so casual get togethers were not easily accomplished. I recall frequently bringing my grill and we would wheel Rausch then grill out together. At the time, we decided not to pursue TLCA chapter standing. I left in 2008 for KY and we started Ky Toyota Land Cruiser here (although Bluegrass Cruisers existed as well). We developed a popular wheeling/overlanding route in KY called the DBBB. We host the KY Toyota Trail Ride in July so if anyone every makes their way down here LMK. Happy to link up.... I hope to wheel in PA sometime again as well. It sounds like good cruiser things are happening which is never a bad thing : )

Here is an album of pics from where I returned to PA on a wheeling trip and joined ALCA for a trail ride. Photo Storage - https://photobucket.com/bucket/e9d840ca-ac38-4f49-8029-28527d2f6548/album/629ea43d-2a45-4bf5-972a-c1146eb4cb18
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Share this page

Back
Top Bottom