Production of a memorable calendar with a local historical theme has become an annual Bridgeville Area Historical Society tradition. This year, in anticipation of next year’s quasquicentennial celebration, their theme is historic Bridgeville houses, with a goal of identifying houses that are at least one hundred years old. This is an intriguing project. My initial reaction was that houses that old might be rare; on reflection, however, to a nonagenarian, a century isn’t nearly as long as it seemed when he was middle-aged. The house we lived in at 1053 Lafayette Street is eighty-eight years old, and I don’t consider it to be bordering on the historic.
Fortunately, there are numerous resources to help us identify the oldest houses. Many old houses are pictured in the three volumes of “Bridging the Years” and in the Historical Society book “Bridgeville”.The G. M. Hopkins map clearly identifies every building in the Borough in 1917. The Frank Russell painting displayed at the History Center provides a birds-eye view of the community as he perceived it in 1893 and is supplemented by a tabulation of individual buildings on its back. John Poellot’s description of Bridgeville in 1859 is a very early reference.
We believe that the oldest building surviving in Bridgeville is the one currently serving as “Antiques on Washington”, located at 423 Washington Avenue. In their classic reference “Landmark Architecture of Allegheny County Pennsylvania” Arthur Ziegler and James van Trump dated the “Murray house” at “1828 or later”. John Poellot identified it as belonging to the Aiken family in 1859. Because it currently is a commercial establishment, it is not a candidate for the calendar.
An intriguing candidate for the oldest residence is “the McMillen house” at 623 Chartiers Street, which John Schneider believes was originally built “in the 1820s”. An unidentified house is shown at that general location on John Poellot’s 1859 map; his tabulation of school children that year includes two McMillen families (John and Thomas) in Upper St. Clair Township. Perhaps one of them occupied the house at that time. The 1876 Allegheny County Atlas map for Upper St. Clair Township shows a house in that general area identified as J. McMillen. The house shows prominently on Frank Russell’s 1893 painting. I suspect it is indeed the oldest continuously occupied house in the Borough.
“Bridging the Years, volume II”, pages 12 through 15, identifies at least a dozen other candidates for the calendar. Three of them are on the Gregg Avenue/Bank Street intersection. On the north corner is the “Wright” house, currently occupied by the Alfred Barzan family. Showing up on the Hopkins map in 1917, the house was built by Joseph Wright, the founder of the Norwood Hotel. The map also shows the Patton house on the east corner and the Mayer house across Bank Street on the south corner. All three are still in good condition and well deserving of consideration. Page 55 of “Bridgeville” includes a view looking north on Gregg Avenue from Chartiers Street in 1911 in which four more historic houses can be seen, those then occupied by the Poellot, Franks, Meise, and Orth families. George Orth was a well-known architect in the Pittsburgh area in the early twentieth century; the School for Blind Children is one of his masterpieces.
The Sam Foster house at 527 Station Street would be another attractive candidate for the calendar if it weren’t currently a commercial establishment (Jerry’s Salon); it is prominent in many turn-of-the-century (1900) photographs of the Norwood Hotel. Two doors away is another lovingly preserved historic house, currently occupied by Jim and Becky Wisbon. This house is pictured on page 44 of “Bridgeville” as the home of Callie and Maggie Morgan. These two Edwardian Era ladies are shown sitting in their front yard with their pet parrot on its stand. On page 55 of the same book is the Lysander Foster house on Elm Street in 1911; Spruce Alley, behind Elm Street, was the eastern boundary of Bridgeville at that time.
The Russell 1893 painting suggested several other possibilities. The four identical houses on James Street are clearly shown. We believe they were originally built by one of the Lesnetts and later acquired by the Murray family. At any rate they were in existence well over a century ago and are still in good shape. In the distance, on what will eventually become Chestnut Street is a single house on the uphill side, about halfway between Bank and Chartiers Streets. It too has been very well preserved; we believe the Gualazzi family occupies it today.
A mysterious possibility is suggested by John Poellot’s discourse on early Bridgeville schools. According to him, “Fryer’s school” was constructed in 1848 on the west side of McLaughlin Run about where Baldwin Street is today. He attended school there from 1859 to 1869. When a larger building was required, it was converted into a dwelling. “When Baldwin Street was laid out, it was moved, later moved again, turned and remodeled into a good dwelling and is standing yet near head of Baldwin Street”. If indeed this house was still standing in 1932, there is a possibility that it exists today.
The more we consider this general topic, the more convinced we become that this year’s Historical Society calendar will be a classic. It will be interesting to see which houses make the final cut. The calendar is an excellent candidate for a Christmas gift for anyone with ties to Bridgeville.
We are eagerly anticipating the first installment of the Society’s 2025-2026 program schedule. Railroad buff Jim Weinschenker will discuss “The Waynesburg and Washington Railroad”, the iconic narrow-gauge line that snaked its way twenty-eight miles connecting the two county seats between 1876 and 1933, providing Greene County with access to the outside world. His presentation will be made at 7:30 pm on Tuesday, September 30, 2025, in the Chartiers Room of the Bridgeville Volunteer Fire Department.