Monthly Archives: December 2009

    The house at 100 Fourth Street was built in 1899 by Thomas Dugan. Dugan owned the Dugan Hotel (First Building on Lawrence Avenue) at 948 Lawrence Avenue where the Sons of Italy is today. The Dugan Hotel was the first building on Lawrence Avenue, built 1894, and only the second hotel in Ellwood City. Being heavily invested in the future of the town, Thomas was very influential in getting his nephew Harry Northwood to relocate his Northwood Glass Company from Martins Ferry, Ohio to Ellwood City in 1892.
    When the Northwood Glass Company came to town, it brought along many fine people including the Eiselen family and the Hellings.

    Though the Northwood Glass Company did not stay in Ellwood City long, those families did stay and another business operated out of the plant built at the end of Eleventh Street along Factory Avenue. In 1898, the American Lamp & Brass Company moved into the empty facility. American became Clark Brothers Glass Company, and again in 1905 it changed hands becoming Ellwood City Glass Company.
    When Thomas Dugan died, his widow erected the largest private mausoleum in Locust Grove Cemetery in memory of her husband.
    We are trying to uncover the history behind not only this house but also the families that have lived here. If you have any memories about this house, whether it be who lived here, or when was the house turned into a duplex, please leave a comment below or email us your memories by CLICKING HERE. Information for this post was gathered from the book Ellwood City Houses and the People Who Lived in Them by Charles R. Moser available at the Ellwood City Historical Society.

    I recently met with Mr. Frank Geniviva to discuss things on and things missing from our web site like Gen Sales on Pittsburgh Circle.  While we were drinking coffee in Thanks A Latte discussing our memories of Ellwood City, Frank mentioned that the road to the old power plant along the Connoquenessing Creek was the best sled riding hill in Ellwood City. I had never even thought of sled riding there, but he said it was so common that the workers used to leave the fence open for them so they wouldn’t crash into it.
    That hill would be fun to go down, but I can’t imagine climbing back up the hill. My brothers and I used to always go sled riding behind the old US Steel time clock station (Nico Luciano’s today). This part of Pittsburgh Circle rarely got used in the snow and when you started getting tired, there was a wooden staircase you could use. By no means do I think this was the best sled riding hill in Ellwood, but it was close to home. If we could get a ride, our hill of choice in Ellwood City was behind the women’s softball field at Stiefel Park in the old brickyard on the hill.
    Here is my question to you, where is the best hill for sled riding in Ellwood City? Please leave your comments below, or you can email us by CLICKING HERE.

    The grand house at 500 Sixth Street was designed to be a small replica of the Andrew Mellon home in Pittsburgh. The house was converted into a funeral home and has remained so since 1945.
    Charles A. Martin for whom the house was built, came to Ellwood City in 1899. In 1907, he was part of the group that founded Peoples National Bank in Ellwood City. The bank was a member of Mellon Bank family which would give some indication as to why Mr. Martin designed his home after the Mellon home. Construction for the house began in 1911 but Charles was not able to move in until 1912.
    Peoples National Bank was the only Ellwood City bank to make it through the Great Depression without closing. However, they did not escape entirely as Mr. Martin suffered heavy personal financial losses. Charles A. Martin may have built the grand house with the large columns on Fifth Street and began Peoples National Bank and kept it running during the Depression at a great personal sacrifice, but he will always be remembered for what he gave back to Ellwood City. He was instrumental in establishing the Ellwood City Public Library and he was present at virtually every single civic function in Ellwood City over a thirty year period.
    Fred and Mary Patton purchased the Martin home and converted it into a funeral home in 1945. The Patton’s operated their funeral home there until 1960 when the building was sold to the Kenneth Turner who has operated Turner Funeral Home here since.
    If you have any memories you would like to share about the house, the Martins, the Pattons, or the Turners, please leave a comment below or email us your memories by CLICKING HERE. Information for this post was gathered from the book Ellwood City Houses and the People Who Lived in Them by Charles R. Moser available at the Ellwood City Historical Society.
    You can view some interior pictures of the Turner Funeral Home on Facebook by clicking this LINK.

    Originally this picture was taken by Bud Dimeo to show all of the vehicles having trouble in the snow on an early February morning in 1961. The picture is at the bottom of the hill on Line Avenue where the finish line was for the soap box derbies. As you can see in the picture, the pickup truck couldn’t stop and had to go out into the other lane to avoid hitting the car in front of it and another car is off of the road to the left of the truck. But it is what else is in the picture that really got our attention.
    The first thing we noticed about this picture is the Esso Service Center at the present location of Barry’s Service Station. Esso later became Exxon and eventually became Exxon Mobil. Then we noticed that Esso is not the only gas station in this picture. If you look at the corner presently occupied by Barry’s Ice Cream, back in 1961 it was Sinclair Gasoline. Also something you may notice in the picture that is no longer there is the fire whistle and it looks like a superman style telephone booth on the Wampum Avenue side of Esso’s parking lot.
    It is not always what is in the picture, but sometimes what is missing too. At the time of this picture, the road up to where the hospital would be was just a gravel road and not used enough to even have any vehicle tracks yet in the fresh snow.
    Is there anything you see that we may have missed or anything else you would like to add, please leave a comment below or EMAIL us.

    The Tri-Hi-Y Club was started for Senior and Junior girls of Lincoln High School with its purpose “To create, maintain and extend throughout the school and community, the high standards of Christian character.”
    The girls would join forces with the Hi-Y boys to raise money by selling hot dogs at home sporting events to contribute to worthy causes including the Colored Fund and the Tuberculosis Fund in 1947. The money was also used to invite various speakers including state executives to address the club to help reveal opportunities to the young women.

    I personally would fall under the category of those that had never even heard of this club. We would love to hear from you if you remember the Tri-Hi-Y Club or its male counterpart the Hi-Y Club, or if you were a part of it. Please leave a comment below, or email us by CLICKING HERE

    According to the 1947 Lincoln High School yearbook, the Hi-Y Club was one of the most active high school service organizations in the entire school. The exclusive club was limited in its membership to fifty boys from the senior, junior, and sophomore classes. The club was formed to help guide its members to a better understanding and practice of the Christian faith.
    The Club raised money by selling hot dogs at the home football games and name cards to the upperclassmen. Money raised was used for donations to the Y.M.C.A for World Service, the Infantile Paralysis Fund, and other worthy causes over the years. The boys would also raise money to help with expenses like sending delegates to Conferences and rallies in towns nearby. All of these exercises helped emphasis the Clubs purpose, “To create, maintain and extend throughout the school and community, high standards of Christian character.”
    The Club also offered the young men an opportunity to attend religious activities and church services at various community churches they may not typically attend.
    If you remember the Hi-Y Club or the female counterpart, the Tri-Hi-Y Club, and have any stories or recollections you would like to share with us, please leave a comment below or email us by CLICKING HERE.

    As Ellwood City grew and the town was laid out, Lawrence Avenue became the “market district” and the main road through town. The intersection of Sixth Street and Lawrence Avenue was the busiest in town in those early days. A lot of this was due to the bridge that connected Ellwood City to College Street in Hazel Dell was at the end of Sixth Street until 1915.
    On the Southwest corner of this intersection was the Dambach Building. The Dambach Store locatedon the first floor was an early version of a department store and serviced the town for many years long before a super-mega-mart was even thought of.
    A number of other business were located in this building over the years before it was completely destroyed by fire. If you have any memories of this building, please leave a comment below or email us by CLICKING HERE. 

    Louise Carroll wrote an article in the Ellwood City Ledger in June of 2009 about an area sports team that was crowned State Champions and exactly the kind of story this sight was started for.
    In 1959, the Medusa Eagles finished third in the world at the World Slow Pitch Championship Tournament held in Cleveland, Ohio after the team won the Pennsylvania State Championship. When the team won the State Championship, they were known as the Chewton Slow Pitch team but became the Medusa Eagles from Wampum when Medusa Cement sponsored the team for the world championship games.
    The team consisted of Dick Allen, Ron Allen, Al Baker, Jim ‘Cat’ Cipro, Chuck Dombeck, Clarence Freer, Wendell Goatley, Gary Guy, Henry Hajec, Willie ‘Sonny’ King, Bob Kosior, Dave Kosior, Lou Kosior, Dom Suppa, and Kenny Tillia. Bob ‘Lefty’ Kosior, who had a heart problem and couldn’t play himself, served as the manager of the team.  Another Dick Allen was also a player and would help manage the team when needed.
    The team originally played their home games in a pasture field on Snake Run Road before moving to the field in the center of Chewton. The team members were responsible for maintaining the field themselves including keeping the grass cut and the up-keep on the back stop. As you may remember, the field is a large square and there was a time they had to turn the whole field around because foul balls kept hitting a nearby house. The team did not practice a lot as they played three or more games a week.
    Mrs. Carroll interviewed a couple of the players, in particular ‘Sonny’ King. “We were competitors. We went to win,” King told Carroll “We played three games a day to qualify and it was Memorial Day weekend and it was hot. A team from Gastonia, N.C., beat us, I’ll never forget that.” Chuck Dombeck recalled “Everyone had way better uniforms than we did, there were teams there sponsored by Proctor & Gamble, Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups and Hamilton Glass and big corporations like that.” Teams may have looked better than the boys from Chewton, but very, very few played better.
    1959 was the second time the Chewton Slow Pitch Team competed at the World Championships. In 1958, the team, including Ralph ‘Red’ Mohr, John Schotch and Jim Ferrante, finished fourth in the world at the tournament. When Louise Carroll asked, “the men said they believe sports were so popular in Wampum because there wasn’t anything else to do but play baseball and basketball”. “They also agreed that they played because they loved to compete and loved the game.”
    Our gratitude goes out to Louise Carroll for writing an excellent article and giving this great team the attention it deserves. If you would like to leave a personal memory about this team or any of its players, please leave a comment below or email us by CLICKING HERE.

    One of our past “History’s Mysteries” involved Friday’s Dairy. Teressa Jones-Wojton had found an old Friday’s Dairy pint milk bottle in her new home town of Sterling, Virginia and was curious as to where the Dairy was once located in Ellwood City. Many people helped with this mystery and we are appreciative for all the help.
    Bob Baney helped point out that the actual farm was located on Friday Hill off of Route 65 across from Mount Hope Road, however the Dairy itself was in Ellwood City. Thanks to Kirk Zikeli, we discovered the actual Friday’s Dairy shop was located in the alley between Todd Avenue and First Avenue in the 700 block. The building is still standing and is used as a garage today. The sign at the top of the building has been painted over, but if you look at the right angle and you know what you are looking for, you can still make out the name under the new paint.
   Friday’s Dairy was owned and operated here in Ellwood City by Ted Evans. We have heard from a couple of people who recall the two Mr. Softy Ice Cream trucks that were kept at Friday’s Dairy. These were the old fashioned trucks that actually sold soft serve ice-cream cones from the back instead of $3.00 popsicles.
    Rich Kline grew up directly across First Avenue from Friday’s Dairy and recalled playing inside the building while watching Mr. Evans and other employees make their various products or clean up after production.  He remembers how thorough they would scrub the place down with cleaner and then hose off the entire inside of the building which was filled with lots of stainless steel tanks, pipes, etc. He also shared with us “I (Kline) remember one intensely cold winter day when the snow was extremely bad and the city and schools pretty much shut down as the roads were impassible for two days.  We merely shoveled a path across the street to the dairy to get milk and other goods.”  That was not the only things he shared with us, as he also provided the Friday’s Dairy wrapping sheets from their “Creamery Butter” which somehow not only survived his childhood but a move away from home to college, and two household moves.
    If you remember Friday’s Dairy and would like to share a memory with us, please leave a comment below, or email us by CLICKING HERE.

    We would like to thank James Hardie for sharing with us one of his favorite childhood memories growing up in Ellwood City. Do you remember the Christmas tree lot in the empty lot in front of the old Henry S. Blatt house on the corner of Crescent Avenue and Seventh Street? In James own words…
    “Some of my favorite memories of my youth in Ellwood were of the Christmas tree lot my father and I ran across from the Post Office.  There is a senior apartment building (Crescent Place) there now.  We had this lot from 1959 or 1960 to 1963.  The trees sold for one, two or three dollars including tax.  Dan Stamm and Dan Jr. raised the trees and supplied the small hut and tree racks, our job was to sell the trees.  I knew every tree in the lot and would take people to the best one thinking a quick sale; however we would always go through the whole lot returning to buy that first tree. 
    The most fun was watching people searching for the best trees during a steady snowfall or walking in and out of the Post Office with their packages and cards.  Everyone was filled with the joy of the season. Life was good.”
    We really enjoy and appreciate these kinds of stories. If you recall the Christmas tree lot in Ellwood City or have an additional Christmas memory you would like to share, please leave a comment below or email us by CLICKING HERE.

    Our gratitude goes out to Jonica Walters who took the time to help by filling us in on the history of VanGorder’s Beach. As you can see below in her own words, Van Gorder’s Beach was on VanGorder Mill Road just past the third bridge on Route 488 in Perry Township.
    The beach was not similar to current popular swimming spots in Ellwood City like “B.A.B.” and “Little Falls” but was more similar to Hubers Beach (later called Nedda Lake Park) on the grounds of what is today Olde Stonewall golf course. Those that went to the popular beach would pay an entrance fee to Joe VanGorder. The creek was considerably deeper then and the bottom was completely stone. Also, along the beach were bath houses so swimmers could change their clothes.
    Please see Jonica Walters comments below and if you would like to add any memories you may have of the beach, please leave a comment below or email us by CLICKING HERE.