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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It was my privilege to make a presentation to the Bridgeville Area Historical Society last Sunday; my subject was the impact of three early railroads on this area in the early days – The Chartiers Valley Railroad; The Pittsburgh, Chartiers, and Youghiogheny Railway; and the Wabash Pittsburgh Terminal Railway.  In 1830, at a time there were only four railroads in the world (three in England and the 23 miles long Baltimore and Ohio in North America), a group of prescient businessmen in Washington, Pa., led by John Ewing, concluded that a railroad connecting their fair city with Pittsburgh would be…

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Two weeks ago I lamented the loss of memorabilia when the twin oak trees in my back yard demolished my storage shed and much of its contents. Fortunately some of the things in the storage shed were salvageable, but a wee bit soggy. My collection of thirty-two Pittsburgh Pirate score cards from the 1940s and 1950s is currently spread out on my dining room table and appears to be in respectable shape. They are too valuable to lose; I must find a permanent home for them. The earliest scorecard is from 1945. Frankie Frisch was the Pirates’ manager; his team…

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The earliest document in the collection of Bridgeville High School Yearbooks at the Bridgeville Area Historical Society History Center has been a very informative one produced by the Class of 1926. For a long time I have had a vague recollection of seeing a 1925 Yearbook during a Boy Scout paper drive during World War II. Sure enough, Dana Spriggs finally vindicated me by spotting one on EBay, acquiring it, and forwarding it to the Society. Once again he must be nominated as “Benefactor of the Year”. It turns out to be a handsome eighty-two-page brochure, in excellent condition. We…

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The first week of 2023 has turned out to be much too exciting for me. On Tuesday morning I woke up to find that two massive oak trees in my back yard had uprooted and fallen, away from the house. One had demolished half of a storage shed; the other was precariously threatening the remaining half. On Wednesday it completed the damage. These were lovely, thirty-inch diameter trees, probably nearly three hundred years old. When I reported this to the insurance adjuster, she requested that I make a list of the personal items that were destroyed in the shed and…

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