The City of Champions, Wampum Pennsylvania. In 1963, a banquet was held to honor a handful of the champions that have come out of Wampum including athletes and coaches. Seated in front from the left were Buzz Ridl, Basketball coach at Westminster College, and the famous basketball coach L. Butler Hennon who led Wampum to unimaginable success including numerous State Championships.

Standing from left to right were Major League Baseball player Harold Allen, basketball player/coach Ronald Galbreath, and one of Major League Baseball’s greats Dick Allen. All three athletes played for Coach Hennon at Wampum High School and Galbreath played for Ridl at Westminster College for perhaps one of the school’s greatest teams, the 1961-62 season.

    The 1949-50 school year at Park Gate School included the following sixth, seventh and eighth grade students. In the front row were, left to right, Ray Foley, Angelo Prestopine, Donald Hogue, Judy Robinson, Bud Hill and Joe Regna. In the second row were, left to right, JoAnne Kraynak, Joan Kirkham, Norma Tritt, Carl Campbell and Eugene LaRitz. In the third row were, left to right, Rose Marie Conforti, Marlene Volpe, Clarence Olinger, Shirley Kolitz and Albert Hogue. In the fourth row were, left to right, John LaRitz, Donna Swesey, unknown, John DeCaria and Joyce McMunn, In the back were, left to right, Fred Regna, Earl Snyder and Mrs. Edna Coulter, teacher. This picture once belonged to Laird Coulter, son of Mrs. Coulter but is now in the possession of the Ellwood City Historical Society.

      The early history of Park Gate and the bygone Victorian-era amusement park Rock Point Park go hand in hand. The village of Park Gate neighboring Ellwood City on the south west edge got its name as a result of the park. Many of the visitors to the amusement park got to the park itself through Park Gate, either by train or by Hack service. It was literally the gateway to the park.
      This aerial view of Park Gate was taken almost 75 years ago and was donated to the Ellwood City Area Historical Society by the family of Henry Bazzichi. Since this picture was taken, at least sixteen houses, the original Park Gate Baptist Church and a grocery store have been torn down.

      The tragic death of Charles Johns and his son George on the evening of April 6th was shrouded in mystery and suspicion.
      On the morning of April 7, the bodies of Charles Johns and his son George, burned almost beyond recognition, were found in the ruins of their shanty-home which was destroyed by fire the night before. Their bodies were discovered by J. C. Wardman, Larry Yoho, and Carl Lattimer who lived nearby and were sifting through the ashes looking for anything that may be salvageable, not bodies.
      Neighbors watched the shack burn the night before but were led to believe that there was no one inside it. The bunkhouse was located on the John Newton farm in Wayne Township near Ellwood City. Both victims were miners and were employed in a mine on a nearby farm. Father and son evidently were burned to death while sleeping, the bodies having been found in a corner where a bed had stood. At the morgue it was said that the father looked to be aged about 50 and the son between 18 and 20.
      Reports are that a man who lived with the Johns was standing in the road while the shack burned. He is said to have had a large bundle under his arm and when asked if there was anyone in the place he replied in the negative. Sheriff Reynolds and deputies are investigating and are looking for two other men who are said to have lived at the same place.
      By noon, the day after the fire, Sheriff Reynolds said he had learned nothing as a result of his investigation so far. He said he was not looking for anyone in particular, but hopes to find someone who saw the victims the evening before. On April 9th an inquest into the death of the two Johns, father and son, was held in Ellwood City.
      A note of interest is that April 6th, the day of the fire, was pay day for the miners.

      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.

      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.

      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.

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.

      Leonard and Viola Chapman Sr. lived on the Ellwood-Wampum Road near the Rainbow Grove picnic grounds. Next to the house was a garage with an apartment above it where Virgil and Dorothy Newton lived with their children. Chapman’s back yard was virtualy the neighborhood playground complete with a merry-go-round, slide, and swings that Chapman installed for his grandchildren.
      Those that remember the event recall especially “heavy” water from the Ellwood-Wampum Road draining into the nearby ravine that had been filled with mostly sand and dirt. Water had been draining almost continually that January in 1952 until the drain pipe became clogged.
    The problem was discovered when the Chapman’s discovered a hole ten to twelve feet in diameter in the road to the rainbow Picnic Grounds. After further inspection, Leonard Chapman Jr. saw water gushing up through a hole in the families’ driveway. Mrs. Chapman thought it safer for the children to get higher ground in the apartment above the garage. 
    The Chapman’s (Sr. and Jr.) tried but could not unclog the pipe with the help of neighbors Angelo Bartolomeo Sr. and his sons, Angelo Jr. and Victor. Soon water, sand, and dirt began flowing downhill and everyone heard the earth rumbling.
    Panic started to set in and Mrs. Chapman told her son to get the children out of the apartment, but they were not able to go to the basement of the house as it was already underwater. Leonard Chapman Jr. got to the children and literally “throwing” the youngest down the stairs, everyone was able to get to safety in time to “watch everything go”.
    The merry-go-round, slide, swings, chicken coops, even another smaller building. “Everything washed down creek.”
    No one was hurt in the landslide but according to the Ellwood City Ledger there was damage to basement of the house and the foundation of the garage/apartment was exposed. Do you remember the day the earth moved? We would enjoy hearing your memories. Please leave your comments below or email us at info@ellwoodcitymemories.com

     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.

    It was close to midnight on a Monday night when the peaceful night air was broken with the fearful cries of “Fire!” The men and women of Wampum ran from their homes to discover A. Moser Clothing Store erupting in flames. The flames completely consumed the store then moved onto the nearby schoolhouse, leaving but a pile of charcoal and ash.
    The fire was not done with Wampum yet as the flames spread to J.C. Davidson’s Drug Store. The men that were awaken by the desperate cries fought vigorously against the fire and saved some of the goods from the store, but the building itself was reduced to only four blackened bare walls. The church next to the drug store only just survived the ravaging inferno thanks to the exhaustive and heroic actions of the citizens of Wampum that night.
    Remarkably, despite the towering flames, walls caving in, and even one man falling from the roof of a building, no one was gravely injured. Though everyone escaped with their lives, the fire was devastating to the small town of Wampum. Davidson’s Drug Store was the busiest store in town in that day and losing the school was a big loss.