Petit House
Mrs. Kay Garwig owned a boarding house in Frisco that had to be torn down when the railroad tunnel was dug out beginning in 1890. The single mother moved into the budding town in 1891 and purchased one of the original Hazel Dell land owner’s houses, the Petit house. Mrs. Garwig turned the house into a boarding house for the railroad workers, passengers on the P & W Railroad, & everyone else who came along.
The Nathaniel Petit & John B. Hazen houses were the only houses north of the new tracks but south of the creek. Beginning in 1891 a number of houses started to be built along Fifth Street north of the tracks. There is a little bit of a mystery as to the original location of the house as it had to be moved. One book mentions that the Petit homestead formerly stood near the “future” site of the Hamilton Brothers on Fifth Street. Another article hints that the house had to be moved because it was located on land designated for the railroad.
After Meritt Green, on behalf of the Pittsburg Company, purchased the family farm, Mr. Green and his family moved into the Petit house. The house was moved less than one hundred yards between Fifth Street and Sixth Street facing Spring Avenue. It was eventually torn down and the site is now occupied by the Alpha Apartments. Until recently there stood an old dilapidated one story wooden house behind the apartments that looked like it hadn’t been lived in for the last hundred years. Mrs. Garwig had given her daughter the land behind the boarding house at her wedding in 1894 and later lived in the new house in the rear of the apartments.
I am unable to speak intelligently regarding the Petit House, however Mrs. Kay Garwig was my great grandmother. She came to this area from Sisterville, W.Va. This is according to family history as told thru the ages. Prior to this it is my understanding that she was once married to a Confederate Soldier who was killed in the Civil War. She was also at one time married to a Union Soldier that also died in the war. Family history does not say which came first. Mrs. Garwig was always referred to as “Maw Kay” at the time. Also the apartments known as the Alpha Apartments, I believe was once owned by her. The property she gave her daughter was directly behind these apartments and was known as 516 1/2 Spring Avenue. This location was directly behind St. Agatha Church and across from the home of the William “Bill” Seidel family. This family owned the Coal Co. in Ellwood. The Hamilton Brothers eventually built their grocery store and was in business for many decades on fifth street. Brown Feed Store was behind and to the side of them. Something is missing from the story after Maw Kay gave the property to her daughter in 1894. The ownership of the property from 1894 until Edward A. Garwig owned it is not clear. Perhaps the property was given to Kay Garwig’s daughter IN LAW, and not her daughter. Edward A. Garwig was married to Iva Kay Garwig, My Grandmother, and they owned the property at 516 1/2 Spring Avenue and had 12 children during that time. One of the children died from the flu epidemic on or around 1916. The surviving children were: Harold, Hazel, Mabel, Everett, Raymond, Glenn, Homer, Jack, Lloyd, and Jim. All of the men who were physically able fought in World War II, and my mother Hazel took a job in the Post Office Department to relieve a man for the draft. Many in laws of the Garwig Family did the same. Subsequent to the war the various family members’ and their spouse’s established career’s in the multiple industries throughout the area. Iva Kay Garwig, as Kay Garwig did, took in boarders in the large home at 516 1/2 Spring Avenue for many years. Many were men who worked on the Turnpike when it was being built and many were drag line operators from the Strip Mines that were around Ellwood in the 1950′s. The property on Spring Avenue was always in pristine condition while the Garwig family owned it. As the family passed on the property changed hands a number of times and was in fact owned by Walter Tindell and was rented out in sections. Later it became dilapidated over the years and was torn down. A satellite view of the property now has vehicles parked on the grounds. An interesting feature of the property is that when digging the foundation for the home way back when, a huge boulder was discovered under the ground. It was so large that the Garwig house was built on top of the boulder due to it’s size. In the north end of the basement the foundation walls were only 2 to 3 feet high, becoming higher, 6 feet, on the south side, but still built entirely on top of the boulder. Should anyone be able to shed more light on the Petit House and this story I would like to hear from them at redtruck.patterson@verizon.net.