Regular readers of this column are aware of my obsession for reading and occasionally ask me “What are you reading these days?” This column is dedicated to them. My reading habits often are dominated by diversions, one book requiring me to do supplemental reading on a subject that intrigues me. I recently came across three 1847 vintage letters home from a volunteer soldier, Frederick Burkle, during the Mexican War. These are part of a series of sixteen letters that have been in our family’s possession for 175 years.  Skimming over these letters re-kindled my interest in the Mexican War, so I…

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My recent trip to the West got me thinking about the significance of water to society and the blessings we in this area have in that regard. News about the drought in the Colorado River basin and the recent agreement between California, Arizona, and Nevada to reduce their removal of water from the Colorado River highlights this significance. I can recall my surprise when I first learned that the western states and Mexico actually harvested every drop of water from the Colorado, and that the river no longer reached the ocean in the Gulf of California. A 1944 treaty committed…

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I have just returned from a week in Fort Collins, Colorado, visiting Sara’s family and sharing in their celebration of Nora’s graduation from Rocky Mountain High School and Ian’s official introduction into adulthood. The coincidence of the McCance children all attending Rocky Mountain High School and John Denver’s classic song, “Rocky Mountain High” is too great to be ignored. I have been a Denver fan for many years, and this song has always typified Colorado for me. “I have seen it raining fire from the sky” and “climbed cathedral mountains” make it a natural to be the state’s official song. Turns…

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Public Art Bridgeville has done it again! This year’s outdoor sculpture exhibit has popped up all over the community, bigger and better than ever. Let’s take a self-guided auto tour and check out all ten pieces. We will begin entering Washington Avenue from Kirwan Heights. As soon as we cross the bridge we encounter, on the left, “Open Doors”, a masterpiece of red-orange folded steel plates that we instantly recognize as a Dan Droz signature piece. A well-known Pittsburgh artist, he was featured in last year’s exhibit as well. His work relies on folding and cutting plates to enhance reflection…

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On behalf of the Bridgeville Area Historical Society, I recently made a presentation on local history to a group of residents at Providence Point, focused on twenty-three persons who figured prominently in it. The first three were Native Americans, leading off with the anonymous PaleoIndian who visited the Meadowcroft Rock Shelter eighteen thousand years ago and left behind a spearhead that may well be the oldest evidence of human habitation ever in North America. By 1200 AD his descendants had evolved into a peaceful, semi-civilized society with impressive colonies across North America. In this area they had an extensive village…

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Dr. Carleton Young paid a return visit to the Bridgeville Area Historical Society last month. He is a legitimate historian with a long career teaching AP history at Thomas Jefferson High School and an earned doctorate from the University of Pittsburgh in the history of education. His subject, “All about Family Education”, was an interesting discussion of his experience researching the history of his family. The speaker began his talk by showing a conventional descendancy chart and illustrating the various confusing terms –  great-great-grandfather; second or third cousin; and (best of all) second cousin, once removed. His research into his father’s…

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My column last week focused on one of the Pitt Senior Design Projects, a proposed roundabout in Bridgeville. This week I want to review the other nine projects and highlight the efforts of this year’s crop of future engineers. A major objective of this program is to introduce the students to “near-real-world” projects; seven of the ten actually have real world clients. Two of them were requested by officials of the Borough of Carnegie, a direct consequence of successful projects performed on their behalf in the past. Carnegie has an Action Plan that includes consideration of installing solar panel farms…

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One of my favorite pastimes is serving as a mentor for the Civil and Environmental Engineering Department’s Senior Design Project Program at the University of Pittsburgh each semester. During my academic career there, I was heavily involved in the program; since my retirement I have been privileged to participate in a greatly reduced role. Transportation Engineering is one of the major disciplines within the Civil Engineering profession. Each year we have a few teams interested in projects appropriate to it. I carefully followed the construction of the roundabout at Pine Bridge Mall on McLaughlin Run Road and have been quite…

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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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