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…

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It was my privilege recently to be invited to an Open House/Work Shop in Bridgeville dealing with an initiative to “celebrate public art and private art sited in public places and to add to it” in the local community. My function was to serve as a source of historical information in support of this project. The initial group of people involved in this project include long-term Bridgeville residents and newcomers to the community, all of whom are dedicated to keeping “the community vibrant and attractive to residents and visitors”, certainly a noble objective. It is equally certain that providing the…

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One of my favorite weekend pastimes is listening to “Saturday Night Swing Session” on WQLN Erie. Hosted by Phil Atteberry, the program features “mainstream jazz with an emphasis on musical history and swing”, drifting at times “toward traditional jazz with some Dixieland… and into classic pop with the likes of Sinatra, Nat Cole and Bing Crosby”.  Recently Phil completed a retrospective on the music of Irving Berlin with three unpublished Berlin songs from the 1970s, excellent songs that were not marketable in the era dominated by Rock and Roll and the Beatles. He commented that Berlin’s last contribution to “the Great…

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We structural engineers are inveterate ambulance chasers; the only thing we enjoy more than designing bridges is trying to figure out why some of them fail. Last week’s collapse of the Fern Hollow bridge provided us with an outstanding opportunity to pretend we were forensic investigators; fortunately, there were no fatalities associated with this catastrophe. When I got up that morning, the first message in my email mailbox was one from Don Toney, “Turn on your TV! There has been a bridge collapse in Pittsburgh!” I immediately complied and found myself engulfed in an intriguing drama. I spent the rest…

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February 3, 2022 For its first program meeting of the New Year, the Bridgeville Area Historical Society welcomed back an old friend, Dr. Todd DePastino, for an entertaining and informative talk on the 1942 German plot to sabotage key defense facilities in the United States, code-named “Operation Pastorious” by Admiral Wilhelm Canaris, head of the German military intelligence organization, Abwehr. In addition to being a highly gifted historian focused on American history in the first half of the twentieth century, Dr. DePastino is founder and Executive Director of Veterans Breakfast Club (VBC), a national organization “dedicated to creating communities of…

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This document may be considered the formal announcement of the establishment of a new organization, the JB Higbee International Glass Collectors Association, also known as JBHIGCA. Its mission is to preserve the history and heritage of the JB Higbee Glass Company, a firm that operated in Bridgeville from 1907 to 1918 and produced thousands of pieces of glass tableware that are currently valued as collectibles. It is the intention of the founders that the Association eventually petition the Bridgeville Area Historical Society (BAHS) for permission to be affiliated with it as a subsidiary organization. The founders currently are members of…

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On behalf of the Bridgeville Area Historical Society, I recently had the opportunity to give a talk to members of the Lakemont Farms Homeowners Association on the early history of their portion of South Fayette, located on the west shore of Chartiers Creek between Bridgeville and Mayview. It was based partially on a talk I gave a few years ago to the South Fayette Seniors. Once the dispute with Virginia had been resolved, Western Pennsylvania was divided into Washington and Westmoreland Counties. In 1788 Allegheny County was formed from Washington and Westmoreland Counties. Within it, Moon Township was bounded by…

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During my research on life in Bridgeville in 1922 for last week’s column I found a number of newspaper clippings related to Prohibition, bootleggers, and speakeasies; a subject area that warrants a column of its own. The story of Bridgeville in the 1920s is a complicated tale involving respectable proprietors of commercial establishments, the Borough Council, the two-man police force, police from neighboring communities, the Allegheny County Detectives Department, federal prohibition enforcement agents, and, occasionally, bootleggers. A major actor in this tale is Bridgeville Chief of Police, William Flood. I remember Chief Flood from my grade school days as a…

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On our recent New Year’s Day I got to wondering what life was like in Bridgeville one hundred years ago. Thanks to old maps, the Polk Directory, photographs, and newspaper clippings we can piece together a reasonable picture of those days. According to the Census, Bridgeville’s population in 1920 was 3,095; ten years later it had reached 3,939. In 1922 it probably was around 3,300. James Wagner’s famous July 1922 photograph “Bridgeville from the Clouds” accurately provides a detailed aerial view of the community. These were prosperous times, especially to the eyes of the middle-aged folks who had witnessed massive…

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It certainly was a treat to have a “near-normal” Christmas this year. I was able to enjoy it in person with Elizabeth and her family, and remotely with Sara’s family in Colorado and John’s in China. One of the things that continues to link us together is the body of holiday traditions we practice. One tradition that we share with nearly one else whom we know is the exchange of Christmas cookies. My favorite continues to be the simple decorated sugar cookies shaped like Christmas trees, Santas, and wreathes. When our children were small, my wife and my mother would…

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