Posts Tagged Forge

    The first picture of the tube mill was believed to have been taken late summer/ early fall of 1916 from the area that was formerly Tunnel Field. For the younger generations, it is easy to forget how big the National Tube Company (a subsidiary of United States Steel Corporation) was.

    The second picture with a close-up of “the smoke stacks” was only a portion of the tube mill that ran from the railroad tracks by the Second Street overpass to the Ewing Park Bridge. The Ellwood City Works of the National Tube Company later expanded to 127 total acres with 23 acres under a roof. Employment reached its highest point during World War II when 4,000 people were employed.

   The Baltimore and Ohio Railroad was one of the oldest railroads in the United States and was created mostly because the city of Baltimore wanted to compete with the newly constructed Erie Canal (which came through Rock Point Park) and another canal being proposed by Pennsylvania which would have connected Philadelphia and Pittsburgh. The B&O Rail Road Company became America’s first common carrier when it was chartered on February 28th 1827 by a group of Baltimore businessmen to ensure traffic would not be lost to the aforementioned proposed Chesapeake & Ohio Canal.
The B&O passenger station in Ellwood City off of Fifth Street beside the subway was torn down long ago, however the Baltimore & Ohio Freight Station on the north side of the tracks along Sixth Street was demolished in 1982. That property is now owned by the Ellwood City Forge.

In 1966, the P & LE freight station was converted into a warehouse and offices by Fotia Brothers Sales & Service owners, Sam & Joseph Fotia.
You can leave any memories you may have about the B&O Railroad 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.

      I recently attended an engagement where the speaker spoke on Ellwood City Area Athletics. Most of the presentation centered on baseball and football but the topic of basketball stirred up some conversation. It was suggested that Joedy Gardner was the most valuable basketball player in Ellwood City history. The speaker conceited that he may not have been the greatest in Ellwood’s history, though he was great, but the most valuable. He credited Gardner with changing the way the other schools around the area viewed Ellwood City Basketball.
A number of people have shared with us how good Joedy was, so if he wasn’t the greatest in Ellwood City history, who was? I guess that comes down to how old the person you are asking is.
Ellwoodians that are around the century mark remember players like Dip McDaniel, Merit Book, and Sing MacDonald as phenomenal players. Dip has been credited with getting people in Ellwood interested in basketball during his games at the Shelby clubhouse as these men played before Ellwood City even had a high school team. As a matter of fact, for the first fifty years of Ellwood’s existence, Dip was widely regarded as the greatest athlete to come out of our tube making town.
      Then that was about the time Joedy Gardner hit the scene. As mentioned above Joedy turned the tide for Ellwood from consecutive losing seasons to an actual contender. He starred at Lincoln from 1951 to 54 before playing on nationally ranked teams at West Virginia University.
      Dan Aloi is probably the other great basketball player to be mentioned in this conversation. Having ended his career in Ellwood with a number of records including single game scoring record, single season scoring record, and the career scoring record. He was also named to the National High School Boys Basketball All-American team in 1987.
However, if the conversation is about the greatest basketball player in Ellwood City history, you have to include Anne Malkowiak who graduated as the all time leading scorer in Beaver County, all time leading scorer in Lawrence county, the first boy or girl to score 2,000 points for Ellwood, and the all time leading scorer for Lincoln High School.
It is a tricky conversation to have as there are a number of reasons why it is difficult to compare these great players to each other. Not to mention whenever the conversations start to get heated, someone throws in the legendary Don Hennon whose 2,376* career points at Wampum from 1951-55 stood as the WPIAL record for 38 years (I added the asterisks because Don earned his points without the benefit of a three point line). As many of you know, the Wampum school district closed and is now part of Ellwood City and Mohawk so he might deserve to be added to this conversation. How good was Don, consider this, the 1958 he was selected for the Associated Press All-American team, along with future NBA stars Wilt Chamberlain, Oscar Robertson, Elgin Baylor, and Guy Roger.
      By default, if you are going to include Dr. Hennon in this conversation, I guess I feel inclined to also add Sean Miller to the mix. True he played his high school ball for his dad’s teams at Blackhawk High School, but he was born and raised in Ellwood City before moving to Blackhawk for his varsity years.
Okay, there you have it, who did I forget? I am sure you will point out great players I forgot like Joe Dougherty but I assure you it was not intentional. I am just going off of previous conversations/arguments I have had or overheard. Please feel free to correct me below or email me at info@ellwoodcitymemories.com

    The enormous house at 301 Fountain Avenue was not quite as large as the Stiefel home less than a block away, but was still referred to as the “southern mansion” of Ellwood City. The nickname may have had more to do with the ornamental ironwork on the flat roof of the house and the railing on the front porch roof similar to the large estates in the southern states.
The house was the home of John Gelbach, who was considered the most powerful man in Ellwood City not involved in the tube mills. He was part of the group that controlled First National Bank of Ellwood City and part of the group that purchased the assets of the Pittsburg Company in 1905 after its head man and Ellwood’s founder, Henry Hartman moved to Denver. The assets of the Pittsburg Company at the time included the power company, water company, the short line railroad and the hotel company, all of which Mr. Gelbach guided until 1933. He was very active in the First Presbyterian Church and one of the organizers of the Ellwood City Country Club.
If you would like to share something either about the house, the current owners and renovations they are making, any of the other folks that have owned the house since the Gelbach’s, or about Mr. Gelbach himself, we would love to hear from you. Please leave a comment below or email us your memories by CLICKING HERE. Don’t forget to mention the “prize” lamp in the large picture window at Christmas time.
Information for this post was gathered from the book Ellwood City Houses and the People Who Lived in Them by Charles R. Moser available at the Ellwood City Historical Society.

    Are you aware that the P&LE station is still standing in Ellwood City today?
     According to the Pittsburgh & Lake Erie Railroad Historical Society web site www.plerrhs.org. The Beaver and Ellwood Railroad Company was organized May 20, 1890 and in April of 1892 The Ellwood Connecting Railroad was incorporated by the P.& L.E. to make the connection to the Beaver and Ellwood Railroad but did not open until June of 1893. In May of 1899, the Beaver and Ellwood Railroad was leased to the P&LE for twenty years. On a side note, July of the same year, the Beaver and Ellwood Railroad acquired the Ellwood Southern Railroad Company.
    Finally June 6, 1910 the P&LE purchased the entire issue of stock of the Beaver and Ellwood Railroad Company and merged it with the Ellwood Connecting Railroad Company in January 1911.
     The P&LE and B&O passenger station in Ellwood City off of Fifth Street beside the subway was torn down long ago, however the Pittsburgh & Lake Erie Freight Station is still standing today along Beaver Avenue. In 1966, the freight station was converted into a warehouse and offices by Fotia Brothers Sales & Service owners, Sam & Joseph Fotia. After converting the old P&LE station into a business, they operated their dry goods firm there beside Vinny’s Family Restaurant for a number of years.
     The business took a big hit on Christmas morning in 1985 when fire swept through the Fotia Brothers warehouse on the 600 block of Beaver Avenue. The one story warehouse was gutted by the flames but firefighters from four departments managed to save part of the two story concrete office/store section. The firm made pillows, chair pads, and other dry goods that fueled the flames and produced a thick dark smoke visible from almost all of Ellwood City.
    The B&O freight station along Sixth Street, on the north side of the tracks, was demolished in 1982. That property is now owned by the Ellwood City Forge.
    You can leave any memories you may have about Fotia Brothers or the P&LE Railroad below or email us at info@ellwoodcitymemories.com

     There has been a recent effort to make the Connoquenessing Creek a usable waterway again with the addition of boat landings from Zelienople to Ellwood City. Those that have gone down the “Conny” know that West of Ellwood City Forge to the Wild Waterways Conservancy at the site of Ellwood City’s old Amusement Park, Rock Point Park, the rapids get a “little” rough. They also know that there are places in Ellwood City that the creek gets very shallow during the summer. 
     This was not always the case. The Slippery Rock Creek that feeds into the Connoquenessing Creek in Wurtemburg used to double the size of the Conny but has dwindled down in size since Moraine State Park was built. Also, another contributing factor to the depth of the creek was the large dam built by the old power plant just west of the Ewing Park Bridge. The two pictures here were taken when the dam was still intact and according to a 1903 map the area was referred to as “the pond”. This area was the site of Foley’s famous jump and from what we hear the site of pretty good fishing including some record size catfish.
     Of course the dam failed in the early 1900′s and was not rebuilt. The creek that once almost touched the Ellwood City Nature Trail in Ewing Park is now fifty feet away from the trail and canoeing is restricted in the hot months late in the summer. We would enjoy hearing any fond memories you may have of the Connoquenessing Creek. To share your memories, please leave a comment below or email us at info@ellwoodcitymemories.com

 

    Do you remember the Forge picnics in Ewing Park? In the Forty’s if you did not work at the Ellwood City Forge, you always made it a point to be friends with someone who did because of the highly anticipated company picnics. Employees of the Forge would get tickets for family members and if you were lucky a couple extra ones for you and your family.
    The picnics would have some of the areas best food, penny games for children, games for adults, clowns, and did we mention the great food? To those we have talked with about the picnics, it was one of the highlights of the summer in Ellwood City. They truly must have been to remember them so vividly a little over sixty years later.

     If you remember the Forge picnics in Ewing Park or elsewhere and would like to share your memories or pictures, please leave a comment below or you can email us at info@ellwoodcitymemories.com

    These maps are amazingly detailed snapshots of the Ellwood City in 1894, they were donated to us by Jan Williams of Wayne Avenue. As you can see, there are many things in the picture that have not only disappeared from the skyline, but there are not many people left that remember what these places looked like outside of the few exterior pictures we have.
    Almost at the center of the picture is the Ellwood Shafting & Tube Company (later to be known as “Mill B” of the National Tube Company a subsidiary of United States Steel Corporation). The picture gives a general idea of the structure, but is detailed enough to show each of the different departments inside of the building. The other industrial building shown is the Hartman Manufacturing Company (on both sides of the railroad tracks). Again, all of the various departments like drawing and weaving department are broken out. Additional items on the first map include the freight house off of Sixth Street and a Railroad turn table behind it. On the North side of Lawrence Avenue between Sixth Street and Seventh Street is the Ellwood City Opera House. Again, so detailed are these maps that it shows the billiards room on the west side of the first floor and a bakery on the east side. It even shows where the stage on the second floor was located. Also on the corner of Seventh Street and Lawrence Avenue, you can clearly see the Honorable Henry S. Blatt’s and Captain A.C. Grove’s hardware store buildings.
    The second map is more of a collage of the more prominent buildings in the town in 1894 than a map. The detailed map includes the Derwent Foundary and Peerless Glass Lead Works, the Ellwood Enamel Company and Ellwood Gas Stove and Stamping Company on Tenth Street, the Ellwood Tin Plate Company and Northwood Glass Company on Factory Avenue, and the layout of the Ellwood Brick Company Limited and G.W. Wallace. Notice in the drawing of the Ellwood Brick Company Limited, there is a foundation laid out for a proposed forge but not yet built.
    In the zoomed in picture of the Hotel Oliver, you get a clearer picture of the layout of the Hotel. In 1894, there were two separate cottages on the grounds and the saloon was also a separate building in the courtyard. You can also see just how large the legendary dining hall and kitchen were as they took up almost the entire first floor of the south wing of the Hotel.   
    At the time of this survey, the population of Ellwood City was approximately eight hundred people. The buildings with a large ‘D’ are “dwellings” or residential houses. If you would like to leave any comments please feel free below or email us by CLICKING HERE.

    Louise Carroll wrote an article in the Ellwood City Ledger in June of 2009 about an area sports team that was crowned State Champions and exactly the kind of story this sight was started for.
    In 1959, the Medusa Eagles finished third in the world at the World Slow Pitch Championship Tournament held in Cleveland, Ohio after the team won the Pennsylvania State Championship. When the team won the State Championship, they were known as the Chewton Slow Pitch team but became the Medusa Eagles from Wampum when Medusa Cement sponsored the team for the world championship games.
    The team consisted of Dick Allen, Ron Allen, Al Baker, Jim ‘Cat’ Cipro, Chuck Dombeck, Clarence Freer, Wendell Goatley, Gary Guy, Henry Hajec, Willie ‘Sonny’ King, Bob Kosior, Dave Kosior, Lou Kosior, Dom Suppa, and Kenny Tillia. Bob ‘Lefty’ Kosior, who had a heart problem and couldn’t play himself, served as the manager of the team.  Another Dick Allen was also a player and would help manage the team when needed.
    The team originally played their home games in a pasture field on Snake Run Road before moving to the field in the center of Chewton. The team members were responsible for maintaining the field themselves including keeping the grass cut and the up-keep on the back stop. As you may remember, the field is a large square and there was a time they had to turn the whole field around because foul balls kept hitting a nearby house. The team did not practice a lot as they played three or more games a week.
    Mrs. Carroll interviewed a couple of the players, in particular ‘Sonny’ King. “We were competitors. We went to win,” King told Carroll “We played three games a day to qualify and it was Memorial Day weekend and it was hot. A team from Gastonia, N.C., beat us, I’ll never forget that.” Chuck Dombeck recalled “Everyone had way better uniforms than we did, there were teams there sponsored by Proctor & Gamble, Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups and Hamilton Glass and big corporations like that.” Teams may have looked better than the boys from Chewton, but very, very few played better.
    1959 was the second time the Chewton Slow Pitch Team competed at the World Championships. In 1958, the team, including Ralph ‘Red’ Mohr, John Schotch and Jim Ferrante, finished fourth in the world at the tournament. When Louise Carroll asked, “the men said they believe sports were so popular in Wampum because there wasn’t anything else to do but play baseball and basketball”. “They also agreed that they played because they loved to compete and loved the game.”
    Our gratitude goes out to Louise Carroll for writing an excellent article and giving this great team the attention it deserves. If you would like to leave a personal memory about this team or any of its players, please leave a comment below or email us by CLICKING HERE.

    308 Spring Avenue was built in 1902 for the Mulcahys when he was the ticket and express agent for the Pittsburgh & Western Railroad. The house on Spring Avenue was sold in 1905 when he bought the City Hotel. Mr. Mulcahy fell on hard times after all the liquor licenses were denied in the county and he was forced to close the hotel.  Suffering huge loses from his hotel venture, Mr. Mulcahy left Ellwood City.
    Charles Cobau bought the house on Spring Avenue in 1905. Mr. Cobau was quite successful in Ellwood City serving as President and General Manager of Standard Engineering and Vice President of the First National Bank of Ellwood City. Charles also helped build Ellwood City as he was instrumental in securing the right of way for the Harmony Line through Ellwood City, served on the borough council, and was even a 32nd degree Mason.
    Mr. Cobau was not only an influential man in Ellwood City, but through the First National Bank, he was associated  with the town’s other most influential men including H.S. Blatt, Thomas Dugan, R.C. Stiefel, David Cartwright, S.M. Hazen & J.H. Lowry. In 1910, he helped organize the Ellwood City Forge Company with Jonathan & David Evans, Charles Martin, Charles Wilson, H.L. Wilson, & J.E. Butler.
    We are trying to uncover more of the history behind this house but also the families that have lived here since Mr. Cobau. If you have any memories about this house, whether it be who lived here, who lives there today, the time you broke your arm falling out of the tree in the back yard, or even the great treats they gave out on Halloween. Please leave a comment below or email us your memories by CLICKING HERE.
    Information for this post was gathered from the book Ellwood City Houses and the People Who Lived in Them by Charles R. Moser available at the Ellwood City Historical Society.

    One of our favorite pictures of Ellwood City is the picture 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. We have added yellow numbers to some of the points we would like to draw your attention to in this picture, of course there is more than the twelve things we mention here and would love to hear about something we missed.
    The first point of interest we see when we 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 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 we 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. We 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.

    If you noticed something we missed or if you feel that we got something wrong, please leave a comment below or email us by CLICKING HERE.