Monthly Archives: November 2011

      I have gotten a number of pictures from Betty Fontana and others that feature the Newton family including a number of pictures of the famous Washer Gang. I was curious as to why this one family in particular was so photographed in a period where “snapshots” were not common. Then I received this picture of the Newton Brothers picking up their shipment by train. In the bottom of the picture it is stamped by the photographer H.C. Newton.
      Thanks to H.C. we get to enjoy these pictures of the Newton Brothers Liquor Store a century later.
      The two pictures of the wagon loads of Standard Beer from Kittanning PA and New Castle Beer (among other beverages), are timeless photographs; and they make me feel a little sorry for the horses. The picture of the single wagon is clearly marked License No. 26 and the horse is also tagged with the same license number. I am curious if that is a liquor license or if that license is required to pickup cargo from the P&LE railroad cars?
     The Newton Bro. Liquor Store was owned by Ellwood City Memories contributor Ralph Newton’s grandfather, Thomas J. Newton. I have not been successful in finding whom the brothers were that may have been business partners with Thomas, if there ever were any.
We would enjoy hearing your memories. Please share below or email us at info@ellwoodcitymemories.com

      Legendary baseball Coach Bill Spellman’s 1962 Lincoln High School squad won the WPIAL Championship. those pictured above were: first row, from the left, Bill Pratt, Randy Chesko, Toy Laitinen, Trippy Blythe, and John Pratt; Second row, Jim Bucac, Pat White, Bob Latino, Bob Poholsky, and Alex Herman; third row, Tom Webster, Gary Docchio, Bruce Smith, Jim Birtalan, and Ralph Bognosky; fourth row, Mike Tomeo, Bill Smeltz, Joe Listorti, Ernie Funari, and  Jim Filippone; back row, Coach Bill Spellman, manager Bill Lively, manager Bob Lordo, Charles Belonzi, and John Matrangol.

      Ellwood City had a few Duck Pin lanes in town, but as for actual bowling alleys go, there were only two or three of those. The one most folks remember was the bowling alley on Woodside Avenue (Ellwood-New Castle Road or Route 65). In the last twenty years the name changed two or three times, but I believe it was Woodside Lanes the longest. Please correct if I am wrong.
      Another popular bowling alley in town was the bowling alley pictured here. The building was torn down awhile back to expand McElwain Brothers used auto lot, but many people still remember the bowling alley. The only name I could find for the bowling alley was the Ellwood Bowling Alley (1964 Phone Book) but I do not ever remember it being called that.
Do you remember the bowling alley on Lawrence Avenue? We would like to hear your memories. Please share below or email us at info@ellwoodcitymemories.com

I was saddened to see the recent obituary for a long time equipment manager for Ellwood City football Mr. Joseph P. Ferruchie and it reminded me of an email Jim Hardie shared on August 22nd.

In Jim’s words…

     No one has talked about football equipment before the advent of plastic in 1961.  Prior to that time most of the padding was made of leather including the helmet.  1960 was my 9th grade year and the last with leather.  I loved the leather.  It was comfortable and had a great smell.  There were shoulder pads, hip pads and the helmet, all of leather.  You always see old time players with helmets that look like padded pilots helmets with a strap flying in the wind.  Our equipment was not like that and was a quality product.  I thought they were comfortable and preferred them to the plastic ones we received the next year.  The exception was the girdle which was foam hip pads in a cloth undergarment.  This replaced the hip pads which strapped to your waist. Years later when I played as a freshman in college I had to wear the old hip pads to my amazement!!!  Our equipment in high school was every bit as good as what was used in college which shows the backing of Lincoln and the football support group.
     One other thing that changed about 1962 was the practice jerseys.  They used to be a loose knit flexible ribbed material which was very comfortable but in my junior year they switched to a fine weave, with no give, cotton which had a shine to the fabric.  We loved the older ones and bought several to wear as street clothes.
     Our uniforms were state of the art and were worn with blue and white leggings.  If I remember correctly we wore one uniform for our sophomore and junior years and got a new one for or senior season – the fall of 1963.

      The single story stone and brick building on the corner of Ninth Street and Lawrence Avenue has one of the most storied histories in Ellwood City. Originally built as a two story stone building, it housed the Pittsburg Company Offices and was officially named the Bank Building of the Pittsburg Company. The second story housed the offices of the company Hartman used to build his town. The first floor was home to the First National Bank of Ellwood City which was organized in 1892. Many of the young town’s most influential men were at one time or another involved in the bank including J.H. Gelbach, president; H. S. Blatt, vice-president, and former board of directors’ members Frank Moore and Captain A.C. Grove.
      The Ellwood City Ledger would later operate out of the stone building, but expansion was necessary. A brick addition was added to the east side and rear (south) of the building. Additional office space was added out the East side and in 1963 the second story of the original building was removed.
      The giant safe of First National Bank is still located inside the Ledger building today but was sealed shut for many years as no one had the combination to open it. When the safe was finally cracked open, to everyone’s disappointment nothing of significant value was found inside.

There has been a lot more feedback from those born at the old Mary Evans Maternity Hospital than I could have imagined. A lot of the website’s regulars have commented on the old hospital post however Mr. Newton went one step further. Mr. Ralph Newton of Colorado was born at the Ellwood City Hospital on November 13, 1927 and he still has the bill to prove it.

    His parents (Ralph W. & Helen Newton) were billed $45.50 for Helen’s 11 day stay at the hospital and $5.50 for little baby Ralph’s 11 day stay. The blood work in the laboratory was an additional $5, a $7.50 fee for the Special Nurses Board, and the $5 fee for the delivery itself rounded out $68.50 bill.
Not only does Mr. Newton have the bill from his birth, but he also has the cancelled check. I am not sure which document is more fascinating. The check has a five digit account number and the check number is hand written. I have a hard enough time keeping track of my account now; if I lived in 1927 my wife would have strangled me.
    Please remember this was 1927, $68.50 was probably a month’s wages back then. There is quite a difference from then to today where my Emergency Room co-pay is $200.
Thank you Mr. Newton, and happy belated 84th birthday.

The Little League Baseball league started in 1950 with six teams, but it was the Moose Lodge sponsored team that won the very first Little League Championship.
      On the 1950 team were, first row from left to right, Jim Navolio, Bob Koach, Rocco Manzo, Ron Hughes, Mike Nocera, and Mario Morini. Second row: Ron Mazzano, Ray Foley, Bob Mallory, Joe Cioffi, and Jim Tammaro. Third row; Dick Gordon (scorekeeper), Walt Feerst, Frank Rocco, “Grundy” Volpe, Dick Friedhoff (manager), and “Skippy” Friedhoff (bat boy).

In 1953, the US Steel national newsletter, US Steel News, honored the men in Ellwood City that worked long days at US Steel and still volunteered their time in the evenings and on weekends for Ellwood City youth baseball leagues. This photograph of the team managers and umpires of National Tube made the cover of the January 1953 newsletter.

    Pictured from left to right in the first row include R.P. Friedoff, N.J. Pack (president of the Little League), J.P. Smith, Charles R. Hall, Nick Perry, and Frank Volpe. Second Row: Paul Reinheimer, Walter Feerst, Robert Mohrbacher, Erwin Campbell, and Charles Maggi Third Row: Thomas Hughes, Wayne Baird (President of the Knee-Hi League), William Frazier, Carl Meise, Merle Means, Chester Shaffer, and E.J. Corrigan.
Other men associated with the various leagues but unable to attend the photograph session included John Matrongol, Wilbert Covert, George Thornhill, Louis Oliastro, George Patterson, Albert Ruhe, and Elwain Richards.
A special thank you goes to Pudue LaCava for taking the time to send us this photogaph – Thank you.

    You can’t tell by all of the trucks, but this trailer fire on South Second Street on July 27, 1957 was actually very small. Firefighters did not carry pagers twenty four hours a day, instead relied solely on the fire siren. The number of blasts told the firemen where the fire was, one blast for the first ward, two blasts for the second ward and so on. Without any operators relaying information back and forth between the men on the scene and the guys at the station, the firemen brought everything. For this small fire, they brought out the Fire Chiefs car (52 Chevy), a ladder truck, 1954 American LaFrance pumper, 57 mercury rescue squad vehicle, 49 pumper.
    This was before men wore all the current firefighting gear. Towards the middle of the picture are five of the firemen on the scene, all just wearing street clothes. One firefighter is wearing a white suit but is hard to make out. We were told that the men didn’t wear a lot of gear then. They would get to the fire as fast as possible, try to get inside if they could and try to attack the fire at the point of origin. When it got to bad inside, they fought it from outside the house. The firefighter walking towards the photographer is Bob Henry, one of three full time paid firemen. The other two paid firefighters in Ellwood City were Bob Dambaugh & Chuck West.

    The second photograph is another example of the firemen bringing everything they have or may need. You can see the towns first American Lafrance, the 49 LaFrance, the 54 LaFrance in the background, the chiefs car, the rescue squad car and more. All of these vehicles were rolled out for this small fire at Dr Painters house on Pittsburgh Circle by the end of Second Street back on Feb 16, 1960 (notice the fancy street light).
In the third picture we see the other two paid firefighters at a small shack fire on Aiken Avenue. Police Officer Tom Magnifico shines a flashlight for firefighter Bob Dambach as he pulls a mattress from the ruins as fellow firefighter Chuck West continues to hit the “hot” spots. The picture was taken Nov 18, 1956.

If you would like to share a story you have of any of these firefighters or even memories you have of any of these vehicles, please email us or leave a comment below.

      If the Country Squire Inn does not look familiar to you, perhaps you might recognize the land along route 65. The motel was located on the ground Christy’s Plaza including Trader Horn is located today.
      The Country Squire would later become the Ellwood Motel. Back before the Interstate, a lot of travelers came through Ellwood City and the Ellwood Motel was a popular rest stop. When this picture was taken in March of 1970, Calgon Corporation was not yet located where the picture was taken from.
Normally this is the place I ask you to share your memories of the topic, but I have a few reservations about asking you for your memories of the motel. If you do wish to share, please share your memories below or email us at info@ellwoodcitymemories.com. Please keep in mind this is a family oriented web site.

Originally Published January 2, 2009

Mr. Spoa had been in the grocery business in Ellwood City as long ago as 1922, which was the same time he arrived in Ellwood City. “Uncle Gus” as he was affectionately known, came to this country from a war torn Yugoslavia in 1922 through Ellis Island at the age of seventeen to join his brother. Originally born in the village of Gobesh, Macedonia (later part of Yugoslavia) May 12, 1905, he was one of eleven children.
    His brother Ernest, who came to Ellwood City in 1917, was in the grocery business with Gus Henton at the corner of First Street and Spring Avenue. Costa Spoa later became a partner in the business when his brother died of appendicitis at the age of 26 on February 22, 1923. At that time, the area the store was located in was still part of Burnstown. Mr. Spoa returned to Yugoslavia in 1930 to marry his business partner Mr. Henton’s sister Donce Torbu on November 28th 1930.
As his family grew larger and Henton’s family also grew, the store was no longer able to sustain both families. Mr. Spoa branched out on his own and developed Spoa’s Market on First Street (later First Street Bakery & currently an apartment) in1940. Eventually he moved the market to Spring Avenue at the present site of Pizza Joes. In 1960, he built the Wampum Avenue Value King Store and leased it to Loblaw. 1963 Costa bought the “8 till Late” store in Frisco (later Riverside Chrsyler Dodge) and in 1965 he developed Christy’s Plaza which has housed a grocery store, a bank, pharmacy, restaurant, and other stores over the years. The grocery store at the plaza originally was not Costa Spoa’s store as it was leased out. The Spoas bought the former Herberts Market in Ellport in 1974 and sold the Spring Avenue location to Mario Morini in 1965. In 1985, Uncle Gus opened Christy’s Market in Christy’s Plaza in Franklin Township.
Mr. Spoa saw the grocery business change around him from a time when grocers went to the customers to get their order and groceries were delivered later in the day to a time when nothing was purchased with money but instead everything was bought on credit, to the current state of the industry today. He was one of the last area business men that could recall the days when supplies were unloaded from the Harmony Line street cars onto a horse drawn wagon and the cash registers were all hand cranked.
Costa Spoa was an avid supporter of the community receiving awards for his support of the Boy Scouts, the local YMCA and almost every other organization that asked. Since he spent up to 18 to 20 hours a day at the store, he had little time to join the various organizations himself. To say that Mr. Spoa was just a strong supporter of the Monastery of Transfiguration in Wurtemburg would be a gross understatement.
A little unknown fact is that Mr. Spoa owned the area’s first television; a large consol television with a seven inch black and white screen. He owned the television so early in the television era that he actually had to wait for the Dumont Station (later KDKA) to start broadcasting so he could use it. Even though there was no broadcast, people would come into the store just to see the test pattern on this new fangled machine.
Uncle Gus’s life in Ellwood City had a rocky beginning in Ellwood City as the passenger train he rode from Pittsburgh to Ellwood City in was involved in a collision with a freight train in the tunnel in Frisco. Even with the rough start, Mr. Spoa was a true patriot. He was very proud of America and that he became a citizen of this country. He loved the opportunities this country offered and the life he was able to have here.
If you would like to share your memories of “Uncle Gus” please leave a comment below or you can email us by clicking HERE.

Originally Published October 16, 2009

      Paul W. Blocher opened Blocher Jewelers and Silversmiths in the 600 block of Lawrence Avenue in the summer of 1907. The shop moved to 314 Sixth Street for a number of years before settling in at the location most of us are familiar with at 507 Lawrence Avenue in 1947.
For a little over sixty years, Blochers was a staple of downtown Ellwood City before moving to a larger location in the Franklin Township Plaza. We have heard from a number of people that remember the unique black marble front and how it just seemed to “class up” the area. So many Ellwoodians have a tie to Blochers either through engagement rings, wedding gifts, anniversary gifts, Christmas gifts and so on. When someone mentions Blochers, it seems that everyone is inclined to give an inventory of the important items they purchased there through the years.
      Paul’s daughter Ruth took over the business her father started in 1938. The Ellwood City’s Centennial Queen’s daughter Rikki continued the business until 1999 when her daughter Mary took over and became the fourth generation to carry on the family business.