Posts Tagged creek

Before the “new” highway connected Ellwood City to Franklin Township, North Sewickley, and Frisco; there was the Frisco Bridge. After turning from Second Street to South Second Street you would go down the steep hill of Zelienople Road and cross the Connoquenessing Creek into Frisco.

I personally do not remember the bridge as it was torn down before I was born but as my mother’s family lived right by the bridge I have heard a number of stories about the bridge. The stories I remember the most were the wrecks on the bridge, by the bridge, and the Halloween decorations. Yes, I said Halloween decorations.

    My aunt, who was still young when they tore down their house to build “the four-laner” or 288, remembers that every Halloween they hung a dummy underneath the Frisco Bridge. It must have been very life-like and traumatizing for her to still remember it forty years later.

The other stories everyone remembers of the old bridge have to do with an automobile accident of some sort. Of those that remember the bridge, almost all of them remember the old barrels of salt along the steep hillside. Someone on this site remembers going down the hill described as every sixteen year olds nightmare. Perhaps the two most talked about accidents were the old gas truck and the circus truck.

It was believed  that the old gas truck lost its breaks coming down the hill and hit the entrance to the bridge on the west bank. The wreck on the old Frisco Bridge in 1944 caused the bridge to be closed for a year.

The circus truck was a similar incident just without the thousand gallons of flammable liquid. As has been previously posted, the circus would come to Ellwood City from time to time. On this particular year, they set up on the farm of Ben Parker on Wampum Road. The truck that hauled the cook tent had left before the other trucks to go to the next town to setup for the next day. The truck went through Ellwood City and down Frisco hill across the bridge and wrecked into a house. As you can see from the picture above, the road came to a “T” on the east bank. I have not spoken to anyone who can confirm if the brakes went out on the old truck or if some of the homemade wine that Ellwoodians liked to show off to the circus folks may have been to blame.

There are many, many more memories of the Frisco Bridge so we would like to hear your memories. Please share below or email me at info@ellwoodcitymemories.com

    Originally located on the present site of the borough of Ellport on the opposite side of the Connoquenessing Creek from the most Eastern end of Ewing Park, The Ellwood City Country Club first elected a Board of Directors in the beginning of April 1912. Later in the same year, the Club added a dance pavilion that would also host picnics to the grounds that already sported a two room building and its own golf course (how Golf Avenue got its name).
    In 1919, The Ellwood City Country Club purchased Dr. J.M. Hazen’s farm in North Sewickley Township and some additional acreage from James Runyan. The old Hazen homestead was renovated with an improved kitchen and added a 16 foot porch for use as a dining room and dance floor.
    Transportation was made possible to and from the club when a “private” stop was added on the “Harmony Route” only a few minutes walk from the clubhouse. The nine hole golf course was in top shape for the grand opening on May 30, 1919. A large number of lots on the Southern shore of the Connoquenessing Creek were leased on extended terms to club members which quickly erected a number of summer cottages.
    The current clubhouse was erected a thousand feet south of the original clubhouse in 1926-27. It wasn’t until the early 1940’s that the club added an additional 9 holes to become one of the finest 18 hole golf courses in the area. Bob Thompson is still considered the best hacker to be a member of the club. Besides being the areas leading golfer for over 25 years, he also was crowned the Connoquenessing Country Club golf champion 18 times. Many amateur and even a couple professional golfers have golfed at the Country Club including one of the greatest of all time, Arnold Palmer.
    If you would like to share a memory you have of the Country Club or any of its members, please leave a comment below or email me at info@ellwoodcitymemories.com

Post Originally Published 12/30/2008

How often do we get to sit back and enjoy the view? Mr. Young, who contributes to this site often, mentioned going to the steps of the Lincoln High School auditorium (soon to be renamed Leslie H. Sabo Jr. Auditorium) and look out over the town and soak in the view. For those that are no longer living in Ellwood but still call Ellwood City their hometown, I will have to take a picture for you when I get a chance to sit back and enjoy the view.

There are many views in our town that we have seen thousands of times but how many times have we actually stopped to sit back and enjoy the view. This was brought home to me two times in the last week. Being on a little bit of a health kick, I have been running in the evenings and last Monday I took my dog with me. Half way across the Ewing Park Bridge (soon to be renamed the Leslie H. Sabo Jr. Bridge) my dog just stopped and was looking down at the creek. After I tripped over him and got mad, I looked down at the creek below with the leaves beginning to change and remembered how beautiful that view can be.

The second reminder began with my bicycle getting a flat tire by McDonalds on the way home from work. As I was pushing the (censored) bicycle across the Veterans (Fifth Street) Bridge, fifteen feet in front of me a bald eagle came up over the deck and flew across the bridge ten feet above the road and back down to the creek on the other side. I watched as this majestic bird floated along following the creek without flapping his spread wings once. This eagle was not as big as the one people often see over Giant Eagle but it was still a stunning bird with the sun gleaming off the brilliant white head. Had I not gotten the flat tire, I would have missed the opportunity to see this (I would have saved $30 but would have missed the grandeur).

One of the most commented on posts on the web site is about sled riding memories. This picture would be looking over the town from the upper end of North Street which is a part of the sled riding memories of many. Ernie who gave me the picture just thought that those who rode down that great hill during those years so fondly remembered would enjoy sitting back and enjoying the view.

    Legend has it that Tom Foley jumped off the Ewing Park Bridge for a case of beer.

On a bet, Tom was supposed to jump off of the old Ewing Park Bridge into the Connoquenessing during the Shelby company picnic in Ewing Park. Company authorities heard of the wager and prevented Tom from making the jump. But the following day Tom showed up wearing a bright red bathing suit and jumped off of the Ewing Park Bridge.

    Tom’s world famous jump was from the middle of the blue steel bridge into the water and yes, he survived to collect his winnings. I have discovered that the wager was not for a case of beer but rather the wager was for a fifth of Whiskey and fifty dollars. He never got the fifty dollars. PLEASE NOTE: Before you try this yourself, there are some things you need to know. Foley was in the Navy and was specifically trained to dive into the ocean from the masts of ships while at sea. Also when Foley made his legendary dive, there was a damn just West of the bridge that made the creek deep enough for the dive. On maps of the area in the early part of Ellwood City, this area was actually listed as Connoquenessing Pond. The dam is no longer there making this feat impossible to duplicate so please do not try this. Ever.

Originally Published September 2009

A lot of very nice people have shared their memories with me either by phone, in person, by email or through this web site; however one gentleman went one step further. Leonard Chapman and I had conversed previously on the location of the Jockey Moore One Room Schoolhouse on the old Clark farm that I just could not seem to find. I got a call from Mr. Chapman two years ago to inform me that he was in town visiting family and wanted to know if I had some time to talk. I agreed to meet him and was in for a treat.

Most meetings I attend usually are sit down, sip coffee, mention one memory and let the other memories build from there similar to a snow ball rolling down a hill of snow, all the while I try to write as fast as I can. This meeting was a little different. As soon as I showed up, Mr. Chapman said, “Okay, hop in” pointing to his mini-van. We drove through the North side and the memories started. Instead of someone sitting in a comfortable chair recollecting, Mr. Chapman was pointing to things and sharing his memories.

At the end of the Veterans Bridge (or Fifth Street Bridge) he pointed to the B&O empty lot and shared that he remembered the little shop that used to sell garden plants by the big billboard at the end of the bridge. I looked at him, looked at the sign, grabbed my notebook and started writing as fast as I could trying to keep up. Someone was outside washing their car which reminded Leonard there used to be cement slabs with hoses on First Street by Spring Avenue. The area was owned by the tube mill and it was available to the mill workers so they could go and wash their car.

We drove past Merrit Brooke and he recalled the ice rinks that I have been looking for pictures of for quite a while. He shared that there were actually two rinks there at the end of Todd Avenue when they would damn up the small little creek that runs through today. The upper ice skating pond was run by the city and Buccelli’s ran the lower rink out of their house. The basement of the Buccelli house had ice skates you could rent and a place to put them on.

I had been trying to find information on the ice rink(s) for some time and was writing as fast as I could but Mr. Chapman was onto his next memory as we drove past the Ben Parker Farm. Today you would have a hard time guessing it was once a farm except the old rusty combine sitting in the field. Mr. Chapman assured me that it was once a farm, in fact a dairy farm. Ben Parker owned the dairy farm, processed his own milk and delivered in his old 1933 Ford like John Dillinger used to drive and made famous. He also shared that the Parker farm is where the circus would set up for a number of years when it would come to Ellwood City.

As we continued on down Wampum Avenue a number of other topics were discussed the old abandoned Matheny House that belonged to Joe Methany, the Matheny graveyard, who built the Spanish style home by Jockey Moore, the empty garage that was once Strabellas Garage, which foreman played Santa at the Shelby Clubhouse Christmas parties, and of course the day the earth moved. Oh by the way, inside the Matheny graveyard, according to the headstone, was a person born during the Revolutionary War.

We did eventually make it to Jockey Moore and right where he told me was the old schoolhouse. Right in the middle of the room is the hole in the ceiling where the old stove pipe chimney once exited the room. Old slate chalkboards still hung from the walls. It was a step back in time.

On the way back into town, Mr. Chapman pointed to the left and said this used to be McQuiston’s farm, then he’d point to the right, this was Phelner’s farm, point to the left Koser and so on. To read more about the farms, click here.

If my little drive down Chapman’s memory lane sparked any memories in your mind, please share below or email me at info@ellwoodcitymemories.com. If you have any pictures, especially of the ice rinks, I would love to use those as well. Please email them to info@ellwoodwoodcitymemories.com

Thank you Mr. Chapman and I apologize it took so long to post a lot of these stories as I was hoping to get pictures to go with most of them. I apologize for not giving credit to the person who donated the picture of the old McCandless farm that was located on West Line Avenue Extension but I did not write down who it was. I believe it was Jim Spielvogel, but not positive. Whomever it was, thank you.

I decided to repost one of my favorite articles on the web site. The post features a priceless snapshot in time of Ellwood City taken from 196 feet above the town sometime between 1909 and 1915. It is amazing how much has changed from then to today. There is so much in the picture it is easy to miss some of the more interesting things. I have added yellow numbers to some of the points I would like to draw your attention to in this picture, of course there is more than the twelve things I mention here and would love to hear about something I missed.
    The first point of interest I see when I look at this picture is the grand Hotel Lawrence surrounded by the majestic Oliver Park. Though it is difficult to get your bearings with this picture, we are actually looking at the side of the Hotel. The front of the Hotel formally called Hotel Oliver is the side with the large white peaks and faces down Fifth Street.
Secondly, in almost the center of the page we see the Central School building built in 1902 on the corner of Lawrence Avenue and Sixth Street. Today the Ellwood City Municipal Building is located on that lot of land with a number of memorials displayed in the front lawn. The large World War II memorial in front of the Municipal building was purchased through multiple fundraisers including donations and with the extra money that was raised for Ellwood City’s anniversary.
Number three in the picture is the Park Hotel, built 1895 and located on the North side of the Ellwood City Short Line. Today, most people don’t remember the Park Hotel and I have had a difficult time uncovering the fate of the old Hotel. Did it catch on fire from the sparks of a passing train, or was it simply torn down due to dilapidation? The fact remains that the building is no longer there but if you look the next time you drive past, one of the walls from its foundation is still standing today.
Four and Five go together, almost. Point number four is the old train station that is no longer there today and number five points to something that is actually missing from the picture, the Fifth Street Subway. The railroad you see in the picture beside the train station was the Pennsylvania Railroad, who owned Rock Point Park. The railroad through Ellwood City was known more as the Ellwood Short Line and replaced the B&O railroad that was built along the Northern bank of the Connoquenessing Creek in 1876. After the Ellwood Tunnel was completed in 1892 the railroad connecting North Sewickley & Rock Point ran through the natural plain which Ellwood City was built upon and the hilly B&O railroad was abandoned.
Ellwood City owes its birth more to the Ellwood City railroad tunnel and Beaver Falls then the more common misconception of New Castle. Ellwood’s founder H.W. Hartman was dissatisfied with the conditions in Beaver Falls where he was the head of the Beaver Falls Water Company and Hartman Steel Company.  He heard the railroad was planning to build the tunnel to bypass the slower line through Hazel Dell and put his plan for an industrial resort town into action.
The passenger station in the picture, known as the Union Station, served Ellwood City until the mid 1950’s. One text says the station was torn down as late as 1957, while another says it was torn down as early as 1955. Today, a parking lot is all that remains beside what is now the Buffalo & Pittsburgh Rail line.
Just west of the Union Station is number Six, the freight yards of Ellwood City. The large structure on the Northern side of the tracks is the B.O. Freight Station. The station was located just West of Sixth Street which was a main road at the time of the picture as the bridge connecting Ellwood City to Hazel Dell was the Sixth Street Bridge, not the Fifth as it is today. The “Hazel Dell Bridge” as it was known then connected Sixth Street and College Street. The original Fifth Street Bridge was not erected until 1915.
The B.O. Freight Station was demolished in 1982 and the property was sold to the Ellwood City Forge Group.
Our number seven point of interest is one of the few things in the picture still standing today. Point seven is the Stiefel Building on the corner of Lawrence Avenue and Fifth Street. I have yet to discover if the building was named after one of Ellwood City’s most prominent citizens, Mr. R.C. Stiefel, if he actually had the building built, or maybe he even had his offices there.
Number eight is the old tube mill more commonly known to the folks of Ellwood as “Mill B”. Originally the mill was the home of the Ellwood Shafting & Tubing Company, the first manufacturing institution to establish itself in Ellwood City as early as 1891. “Mill B” was dismantled in 1923 and the property was sold to Pittsburgh and Lake Erie Railroad for a freight station and yard. It is hard to see it today but from Sixth Street to Blanks Concrete and Supply was nothing but P&LE spurs. Five or six lines of empty railroad lines loading and unloading freight coming into and out of Ellwood City all day long. August 25th 1981 marked the last day P&LE took a loaded boxcar, cargo from Airway Industries out of Ellwood City.
Nine is less of a specific point as it is a general area. As you can see from the picture, the West End of town was the direction of the growth in the early days of the town. The mills and businesses were more congregated at that end and most Ellwoodians thought that the town would continue to grow in that direction. In fact the first school built in Ellwood City after its founding was the West End School and the first hospitals were all located in that direction of town. It wasn’t until Ralph C. Stiefel and J.H. Nicholson left the Shelby Seamless Tube Company in 1899 and erected the Standard Seamless Tube Company (later called “Mill A”) that the town began spreading east also.
Ten is the beautiful picnic grounds of Oliver Park and the site of Ellwood City’s first murder. According to “A History of Ellwood City, Pennsylvania” James Bell was found in the park next to a tree, murdered. The victim, who had carried the mail from Ellwood City to the Belton Post Office, was also robbed as his pockets were all turned inside out. The park was a popular picnic destination (if you got permission from the Hotel) and how Park Avenue got its name.
Eleven simply points out the large farms and spread out residences that still existed in Hazel Dell. Hazel Dell originally was on both sides of the Connoquenessing until Merrit Green and Henry Hartman purchased all the farms on the South side of the creek to build Ellwood City. The roads through Hazel Dell were the old Indian trading paths from when the Shawnee & Delaware Indian tribes occupied the area. It was these tribes that actually named the Connoquenessing, which means “can’t canoe”. Hazel Dell was cut in half by the Connoquenessing and connected by the covered bridge known as the Jones Mill Bridge or White Bridge (built 1858 and razed 1898) located at the present site of the Fifth Street Bridge.
Hazel Dell did not become a borough until 1901, almost ten years after Ellwood City. The borough of Hazel Dell officially consolidated with the borough of Ellwood City in 1914.
Finally, point number twelve reminds you of the time period that the picture was taken. The buildings with no windows behind the houses are not garages, but barns. Henry Ford introduced the Model T in 1908 but didn’t begin the moving assembly lines in his factory until 1913, so there were not very many cars in the town when this picture was taken. Some of the buildings are barns, other smaller buildings are outhouses. My grandmother’s house inside Pittsburgh Circle was originally built as a boarding house for tube mill workers before indoor plumbing was the big craze on HGTV. Four bedrooms, BIG bedrooms, and no bathroom.

If you noticed something I missed or if you feel that I got something wrong, please leave a comment below or email me at info@ellwoodcitymemories.com

Originally Posted February 5, 2010

    The Ewing Park Nature Trail starts in the parking lot between the tennis courts and Helling stadium. The wide path winds down to beautiful spots along the Connoquenessing Creek and back uphill to the loop on the paved road through the park. At one time there were “look-outs” roped off at the very end of the loop looking over the nature trail but they have since been abandoned and overgrown. A sturdy sitting area has been added recently to the lowest part of the path, closest to the creek and picnic benches have re-appeared at the picnic area of the path. Through the years there were stairways put into place from the park to spots on the path but were not maintained. Fortunately, a couple of those rock stairways have been restored recently so that those unable to walk up and or down the hills can also enjoy the Nature Trail.

The Ewing Park Nature Trail was one of a number of projects completed in the Ellwood City Area by the Works Progress Administration (WPA) in the 1930′s. Part of the New Deal, the WPA employed millions of unemployed workers during the Great Depression to carry out public works projects, including the construction of public buildings, parks, bridges and schools which especially benefited rural areas.

    This picture taken in 1936 included Charles St. John (seated front left), Walter Houk (seated front right), Cap Stone (overalls, middle in back), and Raymond Houk (next to Stone with his hat on his knees).

    As I have already mentioned, Ellwood City owes its birth to the Ellwood City railroad tunnel, Beaver Falls, the vision and dedication of Ellwood’s founder H.W. Hartman, and hard work of men like Merritt Green. Hartman was dissatisfied with the conditions in Beaver Falls where he was the head of the Beaver Falls Water Company and Hartman Steel Company when he heard the railroad was planning to carve out the tunnel to bypass the slower line through Hazel Dell. That is when the visionary put his plan for an industrial resort town into action by building that town around the new “shortcut” line.

Jim Hardie recently shared with us his family Indian Story…

  “My Grandfather who was born in 1881 told a story passed down from his mother’s family; the Wehman’s. His grandmother or great-grandmother lived in a cabin near Burnstown. This was during the time when groups of Indians would come through the area. Normally they did not have contact with the settlers but every once in a while they did! His ancestor was extremely afraid of them.

     One day there was a knock on the door. When she opened it there stood a group of Indians. They were polite and made known that they would like to borrow a cooking pot to cook their meal. She had a big iron pot which she loved to use and grudgingly let them borrow it. They thanked her and turned to walk to the creek bank to prepare their meal.

      It was then she noticed the dog they had on a rope and which was to be the main course. The deed was done; the meal was made and eaten. The group took her treasured pot down to the water and scoured it with gravel and sand returning it to her with their thanks.

       For years that old pot could be seen in the corner of the garden plot where it was placed as soon as the group of Indians were out of sight, never to be used again.”

         The Presbyterian Church of Ellwood City is older than our town itself, having originally organized in the “old brick school house” back on July 14, 1891. The church continued to gather at the brick school by the old white wooden covered bridge that crossed the creek until finally building their own building on the corner of Spring Avenue and Third Street. Yes, I said Third Street. The original Presbyterian Church was built on the corner of Spring Avenue and Third Street. The church met there from 1893 until 1925 when they sold the lot to the Trinity Evangelical Lutheran Church.
      The stone building specialist, Albert Dahl built the current First Presbyterian Church on the corner of Fourth Street and Spring Avenue. Mr. Dahl also built the original First National Bank (now home to the Ellwood City Ledger) and the First Baptist Church on Fountain Avenue.
      The building itself  has grown through the years and is now also home to Parent’s Preschool and continues to host the famous Boar’s Head Festival each Christmas.
If you have a story you would like to share about the Presbyterian Church of Ellwood City, please share your memories below or email us at info@ellwoodcitymemories.com

      I am always very appreciative to all those who have shared pictures with Ellwood City Memories. Sometimes I am unable to get the pictures onto the site right away as I have to make sure they are not copyrighted, but pictures like these that were donated by Scott Mackey make my task very easy.
I would like to thank Scott for these pictures he took of the construction of the current Veterans Memorial Bridge on Fifth Street. It is very easy to forget how much further west the old Fifth Street Bridge was located. I know it is mentioned a lot how the construction of the current bridge drastically changed the landscape to the Hazel Dell business district and also led to the destruction of the oldest building in Ellwood City. However, I for one do not miss driving around that island at the intersection where the end of the bridge ran into Wampum Avenue (west), Todd Avenue, North Street, and Wampum Avenue (east).
      In the one picture you can still see that under portion of the bridge closet to the bank where outside pillars are cement, there used to be a large arch like a road ran under the bridge. Does anyone know if there was a road or walkway that ran under the bridge?
Speaking of under the bridge, that pathway they built to get the cranes and cement trucks to the creek would have been a fantastic addition to Ellwood City. A pathway to the creek and a path wide enough to ride a bicycle to Ewing Park would have been a nice little side effect project. There is still a pathway up from the creek at the Ewing Park Bridge. A smaller foot bridge at the site of the old Harmony Line Bridge connecting the path to Ewing Park would have been nice and maybe someday might happen. You can see that the construction workers built a temporary bridge across the creek in one of these pictures so I guess I can hope.
      Back to the bridge, who remembers the 4′ x 4′ sheets of steel they used to cover up the holes on the sidewalk of the old bridge? I remember walking to school across that bridge and the cement would be crumbling away exposing the steel grid under the cement until one day you are walking to school (freezing) and then all of a sudden there was a hole. After a couple of days, they would just cover the hole with a steel plate and you would start watching the next spot wear away.
Speaking of the sidewalks, do you remember the large cement barriers separating the sidewalks from the roads? Those were not there when the bridge was originally built. The only thing separating the road and sidewalk originally was a normal six inch curb. I remember the way the bridge moved when the Forge trucks or Blanks trucks went across, who ever decided to add the barriers, thank you.

      There are seven bridges across the Connoquenessing Creek in the Ellwood City area but none closer to the creek itself than the Country Club Bridge. Before Stonewall Golf Course was built, it did not take much for this bridge to be forced closed due to flooding. Of course this picture was taken before then; in fact it was taken January of 1976.
There are a lot of little details that make this a very interesting picture. If you look at the pillar of the old bridge on the opposite shore, notice that the stone is still there from the original wooden bridge. It looks like there was a steel or cement bridge that used the same pillars when the wooden bridge was replaced. Guess those guys knew how to build things to last back then. For the thousands of times I have personally driven across this bridge, I do not remember it being this wide.
Of the four houses that are standing on the opposite shore along Route Sixty Five, only one still stands today. I do not know if they were torn down before or after the land was purchased for the golf course, but they have been replaced by a large grounds keeping garage for the golf course. Along the creek, on this side of the garage and barn, you can still see the dirt lane that lead to the popular Hubers Beach (later called the Nedda Lake Park).