Monthly Archives: November 2010

    This small building at the five-point intersection in Ewing Park was torn down in the spring of 1967 and the site sat empty for many years before the gazebo that stands today was built. The building that was commonly mistaken for an old one room school house was built around 1922. It served many functions over the years including a place to store tools, as a voting place, to store the fire department’s hand cart, for clerical work in connection with driver’s tests and as a storage place for borough materials.
    In this picture, you can see the local “hangout” Dairy Queen in the background on Sims Street.
 

     After thirty five years at 724 Lawrence Avenue, the United Steelworkers Local 1220 closed their doors on October 31st, 1975. The original union was started in 1936 as Lodge 205 of the Amalgamated Association of Iron, Steel, and Tin Workers. In 1937 the union was chartered under the Steel Workers Organizing Committee when it was located in the former First National Bank Building. Later the meetings were moved the second floor of the former Schweiger Building on the corner of Lawrence Avenue and Sixth Street.
    The first president of the SWOC Local 1220 was T. Louis Majors followed by Samuel Tooch in June of 1938. When SWOC Local 1220 ceased operations in 1975, the officers of the union included Nick Frisk, president; James Foley, vice president; Joseph Mancini, recording secretary; and Charles Maggi, financial secretary; and George Richards, treasurer.

    Around the turn of the century, the Shelby Tube Mill team was one of the best in the area consisting of Judd Turner, Bid Gillespie, Bill Robbins, Paul Luther, Bill Bayers, Chip Bayers, Joe Havice, Danny Bookamer, Barney McKay, and former minor leaguer Connie Wardman (who mentored Major League Hall of Fame Hack Wilson).

      Paul Luther was the star pitcher of the team leading the 1909 team to a 19-1 record. Later he played an important role in building the Veterans Memorial swimming pool and the Helling Stadium football field in Ewing Park along with teammate William Bayers.

    The Shelby Tube Mill sponsored a baseball team from 1900 to 1910 and the area’s best players seemed to always find their way onto the team.

    This picture is from a post card mailed later part of 1906 before Doctor Edwin E. Lamb purchased the area’s first automobile. The picture was taken from the busiest intersection in town at the time, Lawrence Avenue and Sixth Street.

     The Ellwood City Opera House (would later be the Moose Lodge) is on the right and directly across the street is a very nice ornate building that would have been two doors down from Dambach’s Department Store on the corner. Imagine what it must have been to live at this time when everyone traveled by horse and buggy or train. The picture for this postcard must have been taken earlier in the year as this section of Lawrence Avenue was paved with bricks made in Ellwood City in 1906. The downtown area was critical to the growth of the town and everything you needed had to be available (or you did not need it that bad).

     We wanted to post a story about the greatest sports franchise in the area but had a difficult time narrowing the story down with all the incredible players to play for Coach Hennon’s Wampum High School Basketball teams. We are planning to follow up this article with a number of articles highlighting the individual players. We would like to hear from you what players you remember, or any other memories you would like to share about the Wampum Indians Basketball Teams.

    School Principal and Head Coach Butler Hennon became nationally famous when Life Magazine did a feature on his unusual training techniques and the resulting success in their January 6, 1958 issue. Hennon’s unusual training techniques (unusual at the time) are still used by schools across the nation today.

     Practices were held with players wearing oversized rubber boots, a duck jacket weighted with sand, work gloves and blinders. To improve dribbling, players practice wearing gloves and taped glasses to keep them from watching the ball, Tug-Of-War for the ball between players handicapped by galoshes and weighted jackets to make tactic more difficult, medicine balls held high get players accustomed to keeping arms up to block passes, and tires hung from the ceiling for passing drills. Some skeptics could argue with the methods, but no one could argue with the resulting 100+ point games, almost season long winning streaks and the three AA State Titles.

     Many of Hennon’s players went on to play at local colleges; most notably first team All American Don Hennon at the University of Pittsburgh and Ron Galbreath NAIA ALL American at Westminster. Noveleski played at St. Francis, Shena and Swogger started for Geneva, Hank Allen had a sensational freshmen year at a small school in Ohio (maybe Baldwin Wallace) and Ron Allen played at Youngstown, and we are sure there are others we are missing. Speaking of the Allen’s, what other small town produced three major league baseball players such as the Allen brothers? From oldest to youngest, the Allen brothers were Harold, Richie, and Ron. Richie went straight from Wampum High School to the Philadelphia Phillies. Harold (or Hank) played basketball at Baldwin Wallace in Ohio his first year out of High School and then signed with the Phillies at the same time Richie (Dick) did. Ron was younger and was key to the 1960 AA title team and he played seven games in the majors for the St Louis Cardinals. There are some that would argue that Harold Allen had the best chance of reaching the NBA, even more so than the all-time great Don Hennon, but he gave up basketball for baseball.

     All this from a school with around 100 students in High School and sixty percent of the student body were girls.