Monthly Archives: April 2011

      A light rain marked the beginning of the bicycle races in Ewing Park as part of the second annual Ellwood City Arts, Crafts, & Food Festival in 1982. The Minute Man division was made up of children eight to ten years of age.
      By the time the older divisions such as the pictured Colonial Division, ages 11 to 14, race began the light rain had turned to a full fledged downpour. The course became very slippery during the bicycle races but that did not deter any of the racers. 
      The top finishers of the bicycle races held Saturday morning gathered for a picture after the races. Still soaking wet and showing off their trophies are, front row, from the left; Jim Hrabosky, second place Colonial division; Sean Hauserman, second place Minute Man; Timothy Blaskowitz, first place Minute Man; Missy Pifer, first place Minute Man, girls; Bruce Koelliker, Third place Minute Man; and Dave Nagel, third place Colonial. Second row from the left, Tim Powell, bike race coordinator; Dave Ritzert, second place Patriot; Mike Swisher, first place Patriot; Mike Covert, third place Patriot; Mike Rossi, first place Colonial; and Carl Stoops, first place Continental. Missing from the picture is Jim Sutkowski, first place Militia division.
      If you recall the bicycle races in the park or around Pittsburgh Circle, we would enjoy hearing your memories. Please share below or you can email us your stories at info@ellwoodcitymemories.com

      All along the Ellwood Short-line large crowds gathered to see the funeral train of President William McKinley as it passed through Ellwood City on its way from Washington DC to Ohio.
      The event was well documented with several pictures taken from the viaduct where Second Street crosses the railroad tracks. However this picture was taken of the crowd gathered at the overpass from the grounds of the United Steel Tube Mill. This unique picture shows the wooden bridge as it looked in 1901. There are a number of other things beside the bridge that stands out from this picture including the large locomotive engine on the right and all the tube mill workers sitting upon the eight foot wooden fence on the left. Something else we noticed were the houses in the far right.
      The viaduct over the tracks as it is today was completed towards the end of 1931. At that time, there was an effort to name it “Columbus Bridge” but the motion failed to generate much interest.

      Awhile back we at Ellwood City Memories asked if anyone knew where the old fallout shelters where located and what are they used for now. Many, many people contacted us with a much longer list of shelters in Ellwood City than we would have guessed. We received many stories but Danny John was the only one able to send us pictures.
      Mr. John mailed us these two pictures from 1973 when the US Government was removing the medical supplies from the fallout shelter inside the Wampum mines. The shelter was stocked with enough equipment for a two hundred bed hospital.
      Danny John Senior is on the left in one picture. Thank you for the pictures Danny.

      When heading into Rock Point Park, shortly after crossing the railroad tracks there is a large pond from a limestone quarry that operated on the property after the park closed. The water that filled the quarry had a blue tint and was commonly referred to as “Blue Pond”. The story that we got from Leonard Chapman goes that at end of the shift, the men left the stone quarry and everything was fine. In the morning, something was different, the steam shovel was gone. Supposedly some local teenagers that often visited the quarry after hours managed to fire it up and move it. As legend goes, it did not go far and rests at the bottom of Blue Pond.

      Horace O. Abbaticchio opened the first 5 & 10 store in Ellwood called Abbey’s Racket Store in 1907. The name of the store later became Abbey’s 5 & 10. He owned and operated the store until selling it George Clinton Murphy’s chain called G.C. Murphy’s in 1917.
      G.C. Murphy’s was founded in 1906 in McKeesport, Pennsylvania and became popular for offering inexpensive yet reliable merchandise. The G.C. Murphy’s in Ellwood was originally located at 631 Lawrence Avenue before moving to the much larger location in the center of the north side of the 500 block of Lawrence Avenue. Murphy’s 5 and dime originally occupied only the east side of the building and W.T. Grant Company operated out of the western side. When Grant moved out of the building, Murphy’s expanded their business into both parts of the building as most people today remember it. In 1981, G.C. Murphy’s opened “Murphy Mart” in the new Franklin Plaza along Ellwood-Zelienople Road and would close the location downtown on Lawrence Avenue.
      In 1985, G.C. Murphy Co., “The Friendly Store” was celebrating seventy nine years of service when the company was acquired by the Ames Department Stores. Do you remember Murphy’s, if so we would like to hear your memories? Please leave a comment below or email us at info@ellwoodcitymemories.com

      This is what a section of a corner at the Mercer Road and the Ellwood-Zelienople Road intersection looked like on October 22, 1980, before construction of the Franklin Township Plaza started. The highway to the far left is Ellwood-Zelienople Road, in the left center in the background is North Star School and at the right in the background is the Ellwood Knitting Mills facility.
      The second picture is less than a year later. The corner of Mercer Road and Ellwood-Zelienople Road intersection would forever look different as construction work is almost completed on the plaza. Still visible is the North Star School in the background, but the Ellwood Knitting Mills facility is hidden by the plaza. At least five businesses were scheduled to open within the next month inside the plaza. After initial construction, there would be facilities for up to eleven businesses.

      Denny Schill is known for many things during his tenure as the executive secretary of the Ellwood City Area Chamber of Commerce, but before he got that job and began refereeing high school games, he coached one season of football at Lincoln High School. The 1935 Ellwood City team ended a streak of losing seasons when they finished the season 8-1-1. Mr. Schill retired from coaching with the highest career winning percentage and is only one of four coaches in Ellwood City football history have posted career winning records.

This is “his” team…

According to the Ellwood City Ledger, from left to right in the first and second rows are; Bill Young, Al Biego, Robert “Jiggs” Hazen, Dave Luxenberg, Joe Pishioneri, Abe Pratt, Harold Young, Simon Hughes, William Hienz, Jim Flanagan, captain Mike Kraynak (holding football), Francis Miller, Augie Metz, Phil Tammaro, Bill Daufen, Andy Conti, Milton Young, Chester Bognosky, Onarato “Russia” Funari, Mike Perry, Nick Gib, and Tony Scopellite.

In the third and fourth rows with white shirts, from left, Jim Beemer, Bob Schantz, Carl Zeigler, Adam Izzo, Dorace Shapiro, Louis Butchelle, Chuck Rupert, George Ungham, Ben Keller, Dan Fenechi, Eugene Sam, Kenneth Welsh, Vince Galati, Mike Santillo, Sam Leopardi, Harold “Mac” Miller, Mike Gaydosz, Tony Cipro, Ben Bartle, Fred Teolis, and Floyd Rocco.

In the fifth row (in black jerseys), from left, Delmar Wiley, Ed Snyder, Herman Berendt, Art Kaufman, Bob Koah, Don Muir, Dale Worley, Bill Meyer, frank Blaine, Chester Franus, Andy Fehl, Joe Janose, Jim Hall, Donald Marshall, Al Morabito, Chuck Shaffer, Phil Wiegel, and Jack “Sparky” Adams.

In the next to last row from the left, Harry O’Brien, Ralph Tritt, Mark DeBortoli, Gene Massine, Martin Shaffer, Sam Costantino, George HAll, Walter Robuck, and Kenneth Price, managers, and Chester Swick.

At the top, from left were, Ralph Shaffer, principal; Thurman “Dutch” Croft and Gerald Newton, assistant coaches; Vaughn DeLong, superintendent of schools; and Schill, head coach.
Missing from the photo were Nick Frisk and George Robuck, who were out of the lineup with broken legs when the picture was taken.

Please feel free to share your memories below or email us at info@ellwoodcitymemories.com

      This picture is from a collection of pictures that were recently shared with us. The picture is of the former tube mill taken from the grounds of the old baseball field known as “Tunnel Field”. In the immediate background of the picture is the small village of Burnstown.

      Burnstown is located along the south side of route 488 between Ellwood City and Ellport in the third ward. The area was built up upon the Burns farm that stretched from the Northeastern edge of Ellwood City, east, and included parts of Ellport, Rock Dell, and Wurtemburg Heights. When Merrit Greene was purchasing land for the Pittsburg Company, Burns refused to sell any of his property to the group.

      Burnstown was home to many large homes as you can see in the pictures, and was largely made up of families that worked in the tube mill. Burnstown also housed a number of business including corner grocery stores and barber shops and even had its own school.

      When this Ellwood City Ledger picture was taken in 1969, the 700 block of Beaver Avenue was a parking lot. The lot was formerly owned by the P&LE Railroad and offered “all day parking” for the exuberant amount of twenty five cents.  Today the pictured area includes Huntington National Bank drive-through and Diamond Milling.
      In the background you can see two railroad freight cars sitting in the freight yard and Michael’s Discount Company.

We would like to thank Dave Patterson of Laurel, Maryland who sent us all of the newspaper clippings from the Wampum High Schools 1943 basketball season. The head coach of that season was the legendary Butler Hennon, but these were days when he was trying to turn the program around and scoring 50 points in a game was newsworthy stuff and 100 points was still unheard of. You may notice; that Wampum High is not the only school listed here that no longer exists.

Below, we have short excerpts from the games that season.

As per the custom then, the season started with the squad taking on the schools alumni team. The 1937-38 season started off pretty good with a high scoring 52-38 win behind Fiddell, Huffman, and Fontana’s combined 39 points. Up next for Wampum was an impressive win over Enon Valley 30-14, led by Fidell & Huffman.

Huffman was the hero against Evans City as Wampum rolled over Non-League rival Evans City High 43-20. The next game for the Wampum squad would be against Duffs College at Wampum.  Players from the Wampum team included Huffman, f; Kuiken, f; Frank, f; Davis, c; Douthett, c; Julius, g; Matthews, g; Hervatine, g; Ippolito, f; Pauline, g; Fidell, f; Ferrucci, c; Roberts, g; and Fontana, g

Shenango was predicted to win the section 20 Title, but they could not counter Wampum’s determination. “The East New Castle quintet” led 7-5 at the end of one and it was the Shenangoans still leading at half 15-10, The second half was a different story led by the defensive effort by Wampum’s Davis. Wampum had a third period 8-0 run and continued the clamp down into the final quarter to win the game 29-21. The victory was considered one of the biggest surprises of the season and crushed Shenango’s hopes of the title.

Traveling to Darlington High, the Wampum High School basketball team pulled out another victory behind Huffman and Fontana. Next up was East Brook High School “that found Huffman, Frank, and Davis back in the spotlight”. Wampum led 18-16 at the half and managed to hold on to win 40-33 in section play.

Against Rochester High School, the guards put up a brick wall that held Rochester to only eight field goals while “Flash” Huffman put up 22 points in a 26 to 20 victory.

Wampum surprisingly came closer to a section championship with an upset win over Mt. Jackson High School 31-22. Behind Huffman and Kuiken offensive and guard Davis’ tremendous defensive game, the “Hennonmen” grabbed the lead in the second period and never let go.

Next up was the Section leading Bessemer High cagers who were tied with Union. The “Wampumites” grabbed a slim order early in the game and managed to hold that lead throughout. In a very defensive game, the “Hennon machine” pounded out a 18-13 victory placing them in a deadlock for second place while Union secured first place in the section.

Wampum next traveled to Princeton High School but the game was never close. At the end of the first half, Princeton had only one point. Not one basket, one point. The final tally on that Friday night game was Wampum 52, Princeton 6.

Unfortunately, as the names and scores are correct, we only received clippings of games played in both the 1937-38, and the 1938-39 seasons. We can not tell which games took place which season and in what order. If anyone has Wampum High yearbooks from either year, we would appreciate any help. We placed these games in this order as it made it a little more fun than just reading random game articles. We hope you don’t mind.
If you may have more information on these games, or perhaps pictures of any of the players or games, please email us at info@ellwoodcitymemories.com

Additional names from Wampum that played in the 37-38 and 38-39 Alumni games were…
J. Scala, DeMark, R. Ferrucci, L. Ferrucci, N. Scala, Novaleski, Flumer, Marshall, and Fontana.

      We at Ellwood City Memories have a number of stories from people that remember the Majestic and a few that remember the Manos, But did you know Ellwood City had a third movie theater? The Barnes Theatre is the less remembered theater in town. Just a few doors west of the Majestic Theatre, the Barnes Theatre occupied half of what would later be known as the G.C. Murphy Building on Lawrence Avenue.

      Thomas V. Barnes was once the owner of the Majestic Theatre. He purchased the theater from the Shulers, who purchased the theater from the Biordi family in August 1917 for $30,000. The Biordis then repurchased the theater from Mr. Barnes in 1936. After selling the Majestic, Thomas then built the Barnes Theatre which occupied half of the former G.C. Murphy Building.

    As a senior for the Lincoln High School girls’ basketball team in 1989, Annie Malkowiak became the first area player, boy or girl, to crack the 2,000-career-points barrier. After her last High School game for Ellwood City, the future Lawrence County Historical Society Sports Hall of Fame member and California University of Pennsylvania sports Hall of Fame member, was the all time leading scorer for Lincoln High School and owned a number of records and honors. Annie’s trophy case included…

Modern Day Single Game Scoring Record – 59 points
Single Season Scoring Record – 773 points
Career Scoring Record – 2,368 points – Avg 26.3 pts per game
Mars Christmas Tournament All Star Team, Outstanding Defensive Player, and Tournament MVP
Pittsburgh Press All Section Team – Freshman, Sophomore, and Junior Year
Pittsburgh Post Gazette All-Section Team – Freshman, Sophomore, and Junior Year
Played in A.A.U. Junior Olympics in Miami, FL (Avg 10 pts/game)

Leading Scorer in Section 7 AAA Freshman, Sophomore, and Junior Year
Three Years First Team All Section
Third Leading Scorer in WPIAL During Junior Year (26.2 pts/game)
All Time Leading Scorer in Beaver County
All Time Leading Scorer in Lawrence County
First Basketball Player (Boy or Girl) to Score 2,000 Points
All Time Leading Scorer for Lincoln High School

The associate director of athletic development at California University and assistant basketball coach for the Lady Vulcans and was formerly the head girl’s basketball coach at Uniontown and California high schools.

The Annie “MAC” (Master Any Challenge) Malkowiak Scholarship is awarded to a California University of Pennsylvania student who is involved in community organizations and has overcome challenges in his or her life.