Posts Tagged subway

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 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

Originally Published August 10, 2010

      As we mentioned in one of our most popular posts “Ellwood City 100 Years Ago“, Ellwood City owes its birth to the railroad. Ellwood’s founder H.W. Hartman heard the railroad was planning to build the tunnel to bypass the slower railroad line through Hazel Dell and put his plan for an industrial resort town into action.
      The railroad did indeed play a vital role in the growth of Ellwood City and at one time ran four main lines wide through town. There were places it looked like the tracks ran eight wide as there were a number of side tracks owned by the various industries in town. We have heard from a number of people that recall the freight yard from Sixth Street to Blanks Cement that ran six to eight lines wide.
      There are numerous pictures from many different angles of the Union station that was used by both the P&LE Railroad and the B&O Railroad as a passenger station. The beautifully ornate building that sat so prominently beside the subway on Fifth Street is no longer there. The P&LE Freight Station is still standing today, however the B&O Freight Station was torn down in the 80′s. As you can see from the 1908 map of Ellwood City, The B&O freight house and the Union Station are not the only buildings associated with the railroad that are long gone. The first P&L freight and Passenger station used to stand in front of “Mill B” of the tube mill on Sixth Street. Another structure that many people did not even know existed was the engine turn table behind the old B&O Freight Station. Unfortunately, there are no traces of any of these buildings today.
      The trains came through town so often and so fast, a number of people were severely injured or even killed just trying to cross the tracks. Mrs. Kathy Blank shared a memory… “It was during one of those days (when the circus came to town), that I broke away from my Mom and wondered toward the railroad tracks. I can still hear my Mother screaming for me to “stand still”-”stand very still” as she lay on the ground and I was in between two moving trains. I can still feel the wind blowing my hair, as those trains moved. My dad was at work at the “Little Tube mill” and someone must have gotten him ’cause when those trains ended and left town there stood my Dad on one side and Mom on the other crying. That was when I started to cry, never realizing the danger I was in, but crying because my parents were crying. I received many hugs and kisses and a scolding and a BIG smack across, you know where!!!”
      Today there is only one main line running through Ellwood City. A train might come through two times a day with no stops, or anywhere to stop. There are only two side tracks but they rarely, if ever get used. Only shadows remain of what was once there along what is now the Buffalo & Pittsburgh Rail line.

      Most people today remember the little corner building at the South end of the Fifth Street Bridge as a Subway restaurant, but there are a few that remember when it was the Chevrolet dealership. 

     The Economy Chevrolet dealership along the south river bank ledge was a lot more accessible before construction of the current Fifth Street Bridge made the west section of Glenn Avenue one way.
      The small brick building had a small showroom inside, and small lot outside but a lot of folks have a lot of fond memories of the dealership (or more precisely the vehicle they got there). Dave Larson who contributes to this site quite often shared his fond memory of purchasing his 1948 Chevy and also a brown Desoto from there that we hope he shares with everyone here. We would like to hear your memories also. Please leave your comments below or email us at info@ellwoodcitymemories.com

    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

    The house at 18 Fifth Street was built in 1891 for James J. Meneize, a hand picked associate of Ellwood City’s founder Henry W. Hartman. James worked for Mr. Hartman in Beaver Falls but when Hartman began building his town, he brought James here to Ellwood City to work for the Pittsburgh Company and help develop the area. The house was built in a nice upper class area at the time. In 1891 when the house was built, the subway under the tracks did not exist and the bridge connecting Hazel Dell was on Sixth Street.
    Meneize’s daughter Mary Ellwood Meneize was the first baby born in the new town of Ellwood City. The Meneize family also holds other distinctions like they were the first family in Ellwood to have three generations serve on the borough council. James J.’s son James P. and his son Raymond all served the community through the council. James son Robert was one of the young men that made the ultimate sacrifice for us in World War II. Since he was stationed in the Philippians when the War broke out, he possibly was Ellwood City’s first casualty in Corregidor (since the date is unknown, this is unconfirmed).
    We are trying to uncover more of the history behind not only this house but also the families that have lived here. If you have any memories about this house, whether it be who lived here or who turned it into a bait shop, please leave a comment below or email us your memories at info@ellwoodcitymemories.com. 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.

    The deceivingly large house located at 10 Pittsburgh Circle was the home of Jonathan A. and Nancy Evans from 1919 to 1958. J.A. Evans along with his older brother D.A. Evans organized the Ellwood City Forge in 1910.
    Mr. Evans purchased the lot on Pittsburgh Circle in 1919 and had the house that was already on the lot moved to the rear of the lot next door. After moving the house, he was able to build a house more in line with the other grand house in the neighborhood like Rich Brown’s and Ralph Stiefel’s homes. Jonathan served on the Ellwood City Council and School Board for twenty years and was on the Hospital Board and President of the Ellwood City Forge twenty two years. He also served as Director of the Chamber of Commerce for twelve years. It was Mr. Evans that donated the “Ellwood City” sign across Fifth Street in 1925 so passengers on the trains that stopped at the local station by the subway would know where they were.
    We are trying to gather more information not only about this house but also the families that have lived here since 1958. If you have any memories about this house, whether it be who lived here, the time you broke your arm falling out of the tree in the back yard, or even the way they used to decorate the house for Christmas, 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.

    The Pittsburgh, Harmony, Butler, and New Castle Railway (more commonly known as the Harmony Line), operated a daily trolley service from 1908 to 1931 that connected Ellwood City to Evans City and Pittsburgh. Not only did the trolley line carry passengers, but it also was used by rural farmers to carry crops and even livestock to the cities for sale.
    In the early 1900′s Edwin Lamb’s automobile was the first and perhaps only one in Ellwood City. The rest of the citizens in town would have to travel by horse and wagon to get to Butler or upon the slow Baltimore and Ohio passenger train. Then in 1905 Russell H. Boggs of Evans City, and his business partner Henry Buhl, owned a department store in Pittsburgh and wanted to expedite travel between rural areas and Pittsburgh. Mr. Boggs developed friendly relations over the years with regular trips between Evans City and Pittsburgh buying from local farmers and selling store goods to rural families. Through these relationships, he was able to obtain a right-of-way for the Harmony Line trolley system. In exchange for the right-of-way and One Dollar, each landowner received a promise to establish a trolley stop on his property and electric run to their homes for the first time. The promised terminals were added to the PHB&NC but the local trolleys only stopped if passengers were waiting at the makeshift buildings. The Express trolleys only stopped at the large stations in Pittsburgh, Harmony, Evans City, Butler, Ellwood City, & New Castle. 
     On July 2, 1908, the very first run on the Harmony Line began at the Harmony car barn to the Ellwood City station. The Ellwood City PHB&NC station and freight station were built on the Southeast corner of Spring Avenue and Fifth Street. The freight station building was still standing as late as 1999.  The Ellwood City station was the original end of the line from 1908 until 1914 when the Beaver Valley extension was opened. The original Koppel Bridge was built by the railway for this extension. The cement pillars are the only signs that remain today of the original bridge with a United States flag mounted upon one pillar west of the current bridge. Dambach Lumber built a new group of trolleys at the shop near Evans City for the opening of the line to Beaver Falls. These cars were referred to as ‘gunboat’ cars and there is an old wives tale that they were built low to get under the subway in Ellwood City but historians don’t believe that to be true as lower “arch” roof cars were the modern look in 1914.
    The typical car on the Harmony Line could accommodate about forty passengers and included three different sections: a general seating area, a smoker section, and a baggage section. Eventually the Harmony Line added special party cars to their lineup that could be rented for $55 per day. Church groups, school students, and small parties enjoyed movies and card-playing aboard the party cars on their way to and from special occasions.
    As the popularity of the automobile increased and the Great Depression continued, passengers on the PHB&NC decreased. January Fourth 1931 marked the beginning of the end when the Harmony line between Koppel and Morado was abandoned and the line from Ellwood City to Koppel was greatly reduced. Maurice Scharff, a receiver appointed in federal court, assumed charge of the Harmony and Butler short line April 6th and things continued to get worse.
    The summer of 1931 started with the closing of the Pittsburgh/Butler route and on June ninth the petitions to abandon the Harmony streetcar route between New Castle and Beaver Falls was approved. The line running through Ellwood City continued through the summer but the losses became too great. August eleventh Federal Judge F.P. Schoonmaker signed an order granting permission for the abandonment of the remainder of the Pittsburgh, Harmony, Butler, and New Castle Street Railway Co., more commonly known as Harmony Line. In the early hours of August 15, 1931, the last Harmony Line trolley pulled into the Harmony car barn and the P.H.B.&N.C. had come to an end.
     In a large ceremony to commemorate the end of an era, all of the trolleys were ceremoniously burned. All except one single car. Car 115 survived the purge simply because it was forgotten about. The car had been broken down and abandoned along Route 65 just outside of Ellwood City heading towards New castle. After the Harmony Line closed in August of 1931, a former motorman for the line turned the car into Clark’s Diner. Eventually, Clark’s Diner would become the Ranch which was much larger than the original restaurant. Fifty-five years after the opening of Clark’s Diner, car 115 was purchased and extracted from the Ranch and sent to the Pennsylvania Trolley Museum in Washington, PA.

    Please leave any comments you would like to share about the Harmony Line or email us by CLICKING HERE.

      The Railroad has played a very important role in the development of Ellwood City. The first lumber was brought in via the Pittsburgh & Western Railroad to the Frisco Station, where it was hauled into Ellwood City by Elmer E. Hazen and his team of horses.
Multiple railroad companies have scheduled Ellwood City as a stop at the Union station including the B&O (Baltimore & Ohio) previously known locally as Pittsburgh & Western and the P&L.E (Pittsburgh & Lake Erie) railroad. Ellwood City was also on the P.H.N.C. & Butler (Pittsburgh, Harmony, and New Castle) interurban railway and housed the Harmony line trolley station on the corner of Fifth Street and Spring Avenue.
       By 1910 horse and buggies shared the paved streets of Ellwood City with more and more automobiles but the city was still divided by the main railroad line. There was already a bridge over the railroad tracks on Second Street but it was not until 1912 that B&O built the Fifth Street underpass “subway” railroad span across Fifth Street.
The Connoquenessing Creek also runs through the middle of Ellwood City so a number of bridges have been necessary over the years. Originally Hazel Dell (North side) and Ellwood City were connected by a covered bridge. This bridge was replaced with the Hazel Dell steel bridge in 1896 that spanned bank to bank and connected Sixth Street with College Street. In 1915 Ellwood City replaced this bridge with the Veterans Memorial Bridge (also known as the Fifth Street Bridge) that connected Fifth Street with Todd Avenue. Eighty years later, this bridge was replaced with a new bridge linking Fifth Street with North Street. The original Ewing Park Bridge was built 1918 by the Shelby Tube Co. and was a toll bridge until the city took it over in 1939. Ellwood City replaced this bridge in 2004 with a new bridge in the same location.