Bridgeville in 1920 . January 17, 2020

Copyright © 2020                               John F. Oyler

January 17, 2020

Bridgeville in 1920

As we enter a new decade it is appropriate for us to roll the calendar back a century and examine Bridgeville one hundred years ago. According to the 1920 Census its population that year was 3,092, still significantly smaller than its neighbors, Carnegie and Canonsburg, but enough bigger than the mine patch towns in the nearby townships to be an important commercial center, filled with small businesses.

Evidence of the proliferation of these businesses is an advertisement in the January 21, 1920, Canonsburg “Daily Notes” for Franco-American Coffee, “Begin Tomorrow with a Smile”, that lists area dealers where it can be purchased. Included in the list are nine different Bridgeville stores – Ruben Abramovitz, R. Peterson, Harmuth Bros., O. Pinazzi, A Wagoner & Sons, Durgain Thomas, Mary Lavendosky, Albert Sam, and Jos. Saperstein. Apparently this is before the arrival of the supermarkets.

Another interesting advertisement, in the January 4, 1920, Pittsburgh Press is for the Firestone Tire and Rubber Ship-by-Truck Bureau. Located on Baum Boulevard in East Liberty, it advertised shipping anywhere in the metropolitan area. Bridgeville was included on Route 7, along with Ingram, Crafton, Carnegie, Walker’s Mills, Oakdale, Noblestown, Sturgeon, and McDonald.

Business was booming in the Kirwan Heights industrial complex. C. P. Mayer had shifted his interest from the brick yard to the new airfield he had just constructed – the first commercial airfield west of the Alleghenies. General Electric had taken over the J. B. Higbee facility and converted it into “the Glass House”.

The January 17, 1920, Pittsburgh Daily Post ran an advertisement for Universal Steel offering liberal wages for a “man to run Davis Bournondeille radiograph for cutting tops of steel ingots”. A series of similar ads later in the year attest to the continuing expansion of the Universal facility.

The Colussy family’s venture into selling automobiles was in its second year; one wonders if they had any idea that it would be Chevrolet’s oldest continuous franchise a century later.

On January 27, 1920, McMullen Bros., Russell’s Garage, Bridgeville put an advertisement in the Pittsburgh Press offering to sell three different pieces of tire-retreading machinery, “total value $293” for $150, and sweetened the deal by offering “to teach you the business”.

An advertisement in the Pittsburgh Press on January 30, 1920, reported the availability of a new bungalow, five rooms and a bath, to be “sold at a bargain”. Contact F. E. Hanna. The only other area real estate offering in local newspapers was a new four room house on a one acre lot near Boyce Station for $2,200. M. Magie placed that advertisement in the Pittsburgh Press on January 18, 1920.

A few other newspaper articles mentioned Bridgeville people. According to the Monongahela Daily Republican, January 28, 1920, Rev. Murray C. Reiter gave the keynote address at a conference of Washington County Sunday School Association workers. The January 7, 1920, Canonsburg Daily Notes reported that nurse Ruth Fremlin has returned to her home in Bridgeville after caring for a young boy with pneumonia, in Canonsburg.

On January 20, 1920, the Daily Notes reported that Mr. and Mrs. W. M. Russell had spent the weekend visiting friends in Canonsburg and now returned to their Bridgeville home. The January 6, 1920, Brookville American reported a similar visit by Bridgevillers Mrs. Lucy Shaw and her two children to Brookville. Trivial as these articles seem today, it is pleasant to imagine a day when newspapers found such information newsworthy.

The Post-Gazette reported, on January 13, 1920, that Susan Hatz, of Bridgeville, had filed for a marriage license with Michael Roche of Pittsburgh. I am sure that was as significant to them as was the Daily Notes January 10, 1920, article recording the marriage of Sara Elinor Donaldson, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Ulysses Donaldson, in Palm Beach, Florida, to Orvis Alexander McDonald.

Buried in a list of movie advertisements in the January 22, 1920, Pittsburgh Daily Post is one for the Star theater in Bridgeville. The Star was showing “The Call of the Soul”, starring Gladys Brockwell. Ms. Brockwell was a prolific silent films star – this film was one of seven she made in 1919. She successfully made the transition to talkies before dying in an automobile accident in 1929.

The movie, fifty minutes long, was a classic soap opera love triangle involving a nurse, a doctor, and a polar explorer. I wonder where the Star Theater was located. Perhaps it was the one the Delphus family ran on Railroad Street (page 67 in the Bridgeville Area Historical Society book “Bridgeville”).

In 1920 Washington School housed all twelve grades. There were thirteen students in the graduating class that year -- Gladys Allen, Lester Allen, Mary Campbell, Cecelia Dargis, Mike Kissel, Emma Hoffman, Charles McIlvaine, Logan Meise, Walter Patton, Denie Rovesti, Wilmer Schneider, Elizabeth Warensford, and Elnora Weise.

Bridgeville made the society page of the Pittsburgh Press on January 10, 1920, with a report of a meeting of the Bridgeville Women’s Club the previously Monday at the home of Mrs. Albert B. Murray. The Murray family and their handsome Washington Avenue residence are featured on pages 42 and 43 of “Bridgeville”.

Mrs. S. A. McFarland read a paper on “Albert, King of Belgium”; Mrs. F. A. Cummins, one on “Cities of Belgium”; Mrs. M. L. Maxwell, one on “The Shakespeare of Belgium”; and Mrs. G. P. Murray, one on “The Invasion of Belgium”. Mrs. T. D. Lesnett broke the spell with a reading of “The Shepherd Dog of the Pyrenees”.

Miss Alberta (?) then sang, accompanied by Miss (?) Patton. One wonders if these were children. The February meeting was scheduled for the home of Mrs. D. M. Bennett, with Mrs. Maxwell as leader. In addition, “the dramatic members of the club will give a play in the near future, entitled “A Day and a Night”. Great to realize there was so much culture in Bridgeville that long ago.

There was great interest in sports in Bridgeville in 1920, especially in soccer. Bridgeville had a team in the Central Division of the Press Soccer League. Early in the month they played a scoreless tie with Cecil, primarily because of the work of goalkeeper Darkus. Unfortunately they lost the next game to Sturgeon Aerie, 4 to 2, despite early goals by Mochus and Dubroskey.

The rest of the team included Texter, Ziegler, Cimarolli, Ferry, Easterday, Zaney, Federoff, and Dalzuffo. In one newspaper article the team is referred to as “the Panhandlers”. Perhaps they were sponsored by the Panhandle Division of the Pennsylvania Railroad.

Another active team was a basketball team called the “Bridgeville Odds”. One suspects that they were sponsored by the Odd Fellows, before that fraternal club changed its name to the Owls Club. It is described as a junior team; its starters were Silhol (Captain), Jones, Kasputis, Hattner, and Cooper. We assume “Jones” was Burkey Jones – he was captain of the Bridgeville High School basketball team a year later.

I’m not sure how valid a picture of life in Bridgeville a century ago we can imagine from a pile of newspaper clippings, but at least they are a good beginning. It certainly appears to have been a time less stressful than most of the decades that followed.