This week we will return to our review of coal mines in the Bridgeville area, focusing on the Elsie, Melrose, and Katy mines. Our information on them is extremely limited; we would be delighted to hear from anyone with specific knowledge of any of them. Let’s begin with Elsie. Is this a female name or a corruption of the letters L and C? A few weeks ago we were discussing Bridgeville coal mines at one of our BHS brunches, and Ben Rupnik reported that he remembered a coal tipple at the end of Chestnut Street. My first reaction was that…

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The Bridgeville Area Historical Society welcomed back Jack Puglisi for its March program meeting. His presentation featured Alexander Hamilton, whom he credits with being second only to George Washington among that remarkable group of statesmen we have immortalized as the “Founding Fathers”. Jack prefaced his talk with a caveat: his information was based solely on history; he has not seen the recent Broadway show based on Hamilton’s remarkable life. Alexander Hamilton was born on January 11, either in 1755 or 1757, on the island of Nevis in the Leeward Islands in the Caribbean. He was born out of wedlock, abandoned…

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I have been a college sports fan most of my life. Initially, it was easy for me to root for Pitt basketball when Tay Malarkey and Sammy David were playing, and for Penn State football as a natural adjunct to my father’s support of his Alma Mater. Once I got to Penn State, I realized I was in sports fan’s Heaven. Rip Engle was reviving the football program with players like Rosey Grier and Lenny Moore. The winter sports program was incredible. I recall spending one whole Saturday at Rec Hall watching, in order, nationally ranked teams in gymnastics, boxing, basketball,…

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After twelve days of dutifully following the Iditarod to its conclusion, I am in withdrawal, headed toward the depths of depression. Thanks to the Internet and especially to Iditarod Insider, it is possible to follow the entire 998-mile race in real time. You can’t beat waking up at 2:30 am and being able to check the status of your favorite musher, even if he/she is camping out in the wilderness, bedding down the team in thirty below zero weather. This year’s winner, Ryan Redington, was a very popular one. His grandfather, Joe Redington, Sr., is given credit for initiating the…

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How times have changed! Or have they? It is always constructive to turn back the calendar and try to imagine what life was like in Bridgeville one century ago. Fortunately there are lots of resources available to help us paint this picture, including archived newspapers. Between the Pittsburgh papers and the Canonsburg “Daily Notes”, we have found a plethora of interesting information regarding Bridgeville in the first three months of 1923. Things were booming in Bridgeville in those days; the papers were full of want ads. Flannery Bolt needed men to operate a “1000 pound Chambersburg Steam Drop Hammer” and…

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The February program meeting for the Bridgeville Area Historical Society was a reprise of Georgeanne Abood Henson’s excellent presentation about three very special members of the Greatest Generation – her grandfather, George Abood; his cousin, George Shady; and their boyhood friend, Peter Calabro. These three young men grew up together in the same neighborhood, served as Army Air Force crewmen in World War II, were shot down, and ended up in the same Prisoner of War Camp. Ms. Henson had given a presentation on the same subject in November, 2019; since then her research has generated so much additional detailed…

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Every time we hear from Dana Spriggs, we know that some unique historic artifact is en route to the Bridgeville Area Historical Society. This time it was a collection of documents related to Dr. Samuel McGarvey that paint an interesting picture of Bridgeville in the early years after its incorporation. Dana regularly checks EBay for collectibles relating to Bridgeville; one reporting an Odd Fellows receipt piqued his interest. It turned out that the seller had six different receipts with Dr. McGarvey’s name on them that she had acquired at an auction in Washington, Pa. Thanks to Dana, they are now…

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My recent research into coal mines in the Bridgeville area has been focused on underground (shaft) mining and, indeed, that was the primary method used prior to the 1930s. It neglected the portions of the Pittsburgh Seam close to the level of Chartiers Creek, too deep for surface mining and too shallow for shaft mining. A new technique (strip mining) had to be adopted. The first step for this technique was to use a large power shovel to remove a long (several hundred feet) strip of overburden (usually about ten feet thick) and perhaps forty feet wide, piling the overburden…

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A recent donation to the Bridgeville Area Historical Society is a 1916 Pennsylvania Department of Mines brochure entitled “Index of the Bituminous Coal Region”. Included in it is a map locating significant coal mines, accompanied by a table listing their names. This prompted me to do some research on the mines in the Bridgeville area. This gave me a list of twelve mines; further research turned up four more on the Pennsylvania Mine Map Atlas. An additional source was the 1891 Census Bulletin entitled “Mines and Mining – Bituminous Coal in Pennsylvania”; it added four more. Some of these are…

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I have been interested in multi-cultural events for many years; the performance of “Akutagawa” at the CAPA theater last Sunday was one of the most memorable I can remember. Presented by the Japan-America Society of Pennsylvania, the University of Pittsburgh, and Pittsburgh Creative and Performing Arts 6-12, it was a unique multi-media retrospective of the work of Ryunosuke Akutagawa (1892 to 1928), the acknowledged “father of the Japanese short story”.   It would be difficult to imagine a production with more different dimensions, or, perhaps we should say, layers. First, of course, is the exposure to a different ethnic culture. I…

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