The Hummelstown Field & Stream was formed in 1954 as an outdoor club with the intention and desire to improve the environment for game and fisheries. Our clubhouse was the size of a one car garage on 46 beautiful acres that was once owned by the Walton Family and was part of the Brownstone Quarry.
HF&S started as an archery club and hosted an old version of Wildcat using one trap house then expanded to become a trap club. During the 60’s and 70’s we added a rifle range, trained dogs, held pigeon shoots, wild boar hunts, running deer shoots and helped stock trout in Manada and Clark Creeks for the fish commission.
FUN FACT: Mike Diffendall proposed to his then girlfriend on the rifle range! They were
happily married for 31 years!
A new 16 yard trap house was built in the 80’s. Hummelstown Field and Stream also hosted Field Days during this time which included rifle, trap, archery and casting events. Over the years, as trap shooting faded across the nation, it’s popularity faded at Hummelstown as well. Spearheaded by Paul Stokes and John Balmer, sporting clays replaced trap shooting which helped the gun club grow.
Fast forward to 2020….our clubhouse is now a 8400 square foot facility housing an indoor range for pistols and archery and a kitchen and gathering space that can seat roughly 75 people. We host many special events including the annual Children’s Miracle Network, Annual Steel Plate event which benefits Military Share, multiple corporate sporting clay events and an annual Sportsman Flea Market. Our club is also used by local law enforcement to train and qualify their officers in safe gun handling. Our members and their guests visit to enjoy Sporting Clays, Wildcat (a fun and challenging combination of Skeet, Trap and Sporting Clay), a 25/50/100 yard rifle range and a brand new 5 bay pistol range where we host Steel Plate events. We also anxiously await the completion of a new 200 yard rifle range which should be completed by December 2020.
Now incorporated as the Hummelstown F&S Shooting Association, we have over 700 members we refer to as family. Please visit us sometime soon!
Special thanks to Mike Diffendall, Paul Stokes and Bill Thompson for sharing their memories of the early years at HF&S!