While I was researching for my column on Bridgeville during Prohibition times, I came across the newspaper clippings for the mysterious explosion and fires there on December 28, 1931. This obviously was a big enough story to warrant its own column.
Quoting the December 29, 1931, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, “Five families were imperiled and three houses razed and a dozen others damaged yesterday morning by a bomb explosion apparently aimed at Frank Campanelli, who conducts a restaurant at 701 Essen Street, Bridgeville, while the intended victim was absent on a trip to New York”.
My immediate problem on reading this is the question, “Where in Bridgeville is Essen Street”? After considerable pondering and evaluating possibilities I concluded that it must be what is today Bower Hill Road. I have found old maps where that road was called Painter’s Run Road, and it certainly led to Essen in 1931.
Our working hypothesis is that the location of Mr. Campanelli’s facility at 701 Essen Street was on the north side of (now) Bower Hill Road, just east of its intersection with McLaughlin Run Road. As we quote other entries from the newspaper clipping, this becomes more probable.
For example, from the December 28, 1931 Pittsburgh Press, “Mr. and Mrs. J. M. Lewandowski, sleeping in their home across the street from Campanelli’s, were struck by concrete blocks sent hurling through their windows.” We believe Lewandowski’s home and store were on the southeast corner of Bower Hill Road and McLaughlin Run Road, so that makes sense.
From the Post-Gazette, “The gasoline station and home of G. Tolmer at McLaughlin Run Road and Essen Street was damaged.” We presume that is the building on the southwest corner that was occupied by the Calabro family a few years later.
“The two other houses levelled by the blast and fire were those of William Donnelly, 703 Essen Street, and James Sasso, of 699 Essen Street, on either side of Campanelli’s”. And, “Henry Cherry, whose home is next door to Sasso’s, his wife Gertrude, and their two children were thrown across their bedrooms”.
Other homes damaged include those of John Mazza, Mrs. Viola Purnell, Mrs. Shera Hackley, and Mrs. M. C. Copeland, all on Essen Street; Harry Klink and R. Abramovitz on Baldwin Street; and Mrs. A. Pruner on McLaughlin Run Road. Also damaged were the St. George Orthodox Church on McLaughlin Run Road, the Baptist Church on Essen Street, and the Butler Store on Baldwin Street.
This was not the first time Mr. Campanelli made the newspapers. The July 1, 1931 Post-Gazette in an article headlined “Dry Raiders Arrest Eight” reported an arrest at “701 Essen Street, Bridgeville: Fernando Campanelli: 2 pints of whisky, 128 pints of beer and 15 gallons of beer mash”. It certainly appears that his store/restaurant was also a speakeasy.
Four days before the explosion the Campanelli family had left for a holiday trip to New York. According to Bridgeville Police Chief R. W. Fink, “a mysterious letter had been left on the steps of the Campanelli store shortly after the family left the city”. His attempts to trace the letter writer as part of a vendetta plot were fruitless.
Reading between the lines it is easy to suspect that Mr. Campanelli was indeed a bootlegger, or at least an operator of a speakeasy. It is equally easy to suspect he came into conflict with competitors who had no compunction about rules of competition. We have no record of him before or after this incident. Perhaps he never returned to Bridgeville after this warning.
The final paragraph of the Post-Gazette article reports “William Macucci, who lives on the first floor of the Sasso home, was the victim of a bomb blast on McLaughlin Run Road last February, when his new home was destroyed”. Reading this brought me a series of reactions, terminating with the realization that William Macucci was “Billy Makooch”!
For years my Baldwin Street friends have talked about a legendary local folk hero – bootlegger, Mafia enforcer, etc. – cruising down the street in a big car while everyone in sight moved out of the way. Sometimes he had his girlfriend Ruby with him. John Rosa thinks it was a ’28 or ’29 Packard. Russ Kovach remembers the driver – Billy Makooch – as a very short man, who could barely see over the dashboard.
The suburban legend, which continues to get embellished each time it is told, has Billy relocating after this second bomb experience, to a site farther out McLaughlin Run Road, across the road from what is now Bridgeville Park. He is reputed to have lived in a modest hut, close to the mouth of a cave, where he stored (and possibly manufactured) illegal beverages.
Someone reported a rumor that Makooch was responsible for the Campanelli explosion, retribution for the one that destroyed his house. He certainly is remembered as someone to be respected (or feared?).
There is a suggestion that the cave was actually the portal for the Bridgeville coal mine. According to the 1917 Hopkins Map for Bridgeville, the tipple over the railroad for Pittsburgh Coal’s Bridgeville Mine was located close to the current location of the Bridgeville Volunteer Fire Department. The mine portal entered Cook’s Hill under Union Street. The mine railway came out of a portal under Bower Hill Road, was “day-lighted” a short distance before entering another portal under Mill Street, and then progressed through Fryer’s Hill all the way to McLaughlin Run Road.
At any rate, it is encouraging to confirm that Bill Makooch did indeed exist. I visualize him as someone who would be played in a movie by Peter Lorre; Don Toney voted for Danny DeVito, probably a better choice. We will never know if he was a villain or an innocent bystander, but he has certainly earned a place in Bridgeville lore as one of its most colorful characters.