Brigeville Area News RIP January 12, 2017

Copyright © 2017       John F. Oyler

January 12, 2017

The Bridgeville News, RIP

We think the first newspaper in Bridgeville was published by C. P. Mayer sometime around the turn of the twentieth century; we have no record of its name nor the duration of its existence. We also know that, at least in 1918, John W. Knepper published a four page weekly newspaper called “The Bridgeville Signal”; again we have no record of its duration.

We also know that publication of “the Bridgeville News” was begun in 1926 as “a means of helping Francis P. Cavanaugh through college and University”, according to a document entitled “Ethnographic Survey of Bridgeville” written by Alex D. Karaczun in 1992 as a “Rivers of Steel” project.

The same source documents four moves for Bridgeville Publishing Company before finding a permanent home on Jane Way in 1937. That is the location I remember from my high school days when I used to provide the paper with reports on the activities of our athletic teams. This was my first exposure to censorship because of commercial conflicts. I wrote an article reporting the victory of our football team over Cecil, which Mr. Cavanaugh rejected because he was afraid it would alienate his customers in the Cecil area. Being a typical teenage rebel, I promptly resigned in protest. This rash incident nipped my career as a sports journalist in the bud and doomed me to a future as a Civil Engineer (a future for which I was much better suited, fortunately).

I was just one of series of high school sports reporters who supplied the paper with articles; my brother did the same chore when he was a senior. Apparently my successors were more rational than I; I am not aware of any of them resigning in protest. A few years later my mother was a volunteer at the Bridgeville Public Library and was very proud of being able to provide the paper with reviews of new books as they were acquired by the library.

In1953 Mr. Cavanaugh sold the paper to John McCracken and Ralph E. Hennon, an experienced pressman from Oakdale. McCracken sold his interest in the paper in 1958, and a partnership of Mr. Hennon and Custer G. Papas took over. Papas had worked for the paper for about ten years, primarily as a linotype operator. When Mr. Hennon encountered health problems in 1966, Papas bought his interest and became sole operator and publisher of the Bridgeville Publishing Company.

In 1977 the Knepper Press acquired the Bridgeville Publishing Company and continued to publish the Bridgeville News, now called ”the Bridgeville Area News”.  The Knepper family has a long history of newspaper publishing in the Chartiers Valley, including the brief episode in Bridgeville mentioned above. Their first paper was the Mansfield Item, which commenced publication in 1873.

I wrote a series of columns a few years ago, based on microfiche archives of the Mansfield Item at the Carnegie Historical Society. There were a few news items about Bridgeville in most issues. Occasionally Mr. Knepper would make an effort to recruit customers and advertisers from Bridgeville and would put out an issue filled with Bridgeville gossip. It doesn’t appear the effort was very successful.

In 1894 Mansfield and Chartiers Boroughs merged, forming a new community, which they named Carnegie. The Mansfield Item followed suit, being renamed the Carnegie Item. In 1905 John C. Knepper attempted to diversify by starting a new paper, the “Valley Signal.” We don’t know much about it; it may actually have been called “the Chartiers Valley Signal”. It survived until 1908 when it apparently was merged with “the Item”, generating a new name, “the Carnegie Signal-Item”. I wish we knew more about the individuals in the Knepper family and the convoluted history of this paper.

In 1989 Gateway Newspapers, a Monroeville firm specializing in small weekly community papers, acquired the Bridgeville Area News and the Carnegie Signal-Item and continued to publish them. “Water Under the Bridge” made its first appearance in the Bridgeville Area News in November 1993. Its title was “An Old-Fashioned Thanksgiving“; it dealt with our family’s annual trip to my father’s home near Chambersburg each Thanksgiving.

In 2005 Gateway was purchased by Trib Total Media, the parent company of a number of newspapers including the Pittsburgh Tribune Review. In the summer of 2008 they decided to terminate publication of the Bridgeville Area News. The final edition featured a cartoon of a disconsolate columnist leaning over a bridge and watching the water flow under it for the last time.

Eighteen months later the Bridgeville paper was miraculously resuscitated as was my journalistic career. The paper was now to be distributed by mail, along with the Pennysaver, to a much broader audience, one that included readers in South Fayette and Collier Townships, as well as those Bridgeville residents who had been unable or unwilling to pay for the paper in its earlier form.

These past seven years have been quite rewarding for me. I regularly encounter folks who recognize me from my picture in the column masthead and comment on something I have recently written. Unfortunately the changing situation in the print media industry appears to have caught up with us again. Our younger generations prefer to get their news electronically, and the market for hard copy newspapers has declined accordingly.

Trib Total Media has recognized this and reorganized to accommodate it. Last month they ceased to publish print copies and have concentrated on producing a very effective website in their place. Along with this change they have re-evaluated the local community market and elected to focus on a smaller number of local papers, a decision which once again has doomed the Bridgeville Area News.

It is their intention to replace the existing Carnegie Signal-Item and Bridgeville Area News with a single paper, the Signal-Item, serving the middle Chartiers Valley area, including Bridgeville. At this time “Water Under the Bridge” will continue to appear in the new paper. The new news editor of the Signal-Item, Bobby Cherry, has an impressive track record, as can be seen by his work with the Sewickley Herald, a local paper that provides much more relevant news than we have seen in this area for years.

Unfortunately at this time there are no plans to continue distribution of the paper to Collier and South Fayette Townships, a decision that I hope will be reconsidered. We are planning to continue to archive our columns with the Bridgeville Area Historical Society and on my personal blog site, http://mywutb.blogspot.com.

I am grateful to Trib Total Media for providing me with the opportunity to write this column for the past several decades; I hope they will continue to provide Bridgeville with a quality weekly community paper.

By my count the most recent version of the Bridgeville News was under its eighth different management. Does this cat have a ninth life? Or have I missed one somewhere along the way and its nine lives are used up?

Catfish January 5, 2017

Copyright © 2017       John F. Oyler

January 5, 2017

Catfish

Veteran readers of this column are aware of my fascination with Catfish Path, the ancient Indian trail from what is today Washington, Pa., to the Ohio River, roughly following the Chartiers Creek valley. The southern terminus of the trail was Catfish Camp, allegedly named for a Native American whose name, in the language of the Delawares was Tingooqua. I have assumed there was someone with that name, but never knew for sure that he actually existed.

Last Fall when I attended the re-enactment of the termination of the Mason-Dixon Line survey, I was surprised to see a re-enactor portraying a Delaware named Tingooqua, who was called Catfish by the English. When I asked the re-enactor, Ed Robey, what he knew about the real Tingooqua, I was rewarded with a fine collection of articles about him. Not only was Tingooqua a contemporary of the earliest settlers in this area, he was an extremely significant contributor to the history and heritage of our region.

The most relevant reference was in “The Journal of Charles Mason and Jeremiah Dixon”. I had acquired a copy of it but had not yet been able to read it in detail. Sure enough, early in October, 1767, they report “About two miles west of the Monaungahlea we were paid a visit by Catfish, his nephew, and squaw”. This was indeed the encounter that we had seen the re-enactors reproduce.

The Journal then reports that the chief of the (Iroquois) Indians accompanying the surveying expedition parleyed with Catfish, presented him with wampum, explained the purpose of their mission, and convinced him of their peaceful intent. Catfish, a Chief of the Delawares, was described as being “very well dressed, nearly like Europeans”.

Colonial Records of Pennsylvania describe a meeting in Philadelphia on December 4, 1759, in which two Delaware chieftains, Teedyuscung and Tingooqua, met with Lieutenant Governor James Hamilton. Tingooqua, who called himself a messenger from the Kuskuskes Nation, presented the Lieutenant Governor with four strings of wampum and declared that the “eleven nations on the west of Allegheny” supported the peace treaty Teedyuscung had negotiated with the Penn family and that they looked forward to many years of peace in the future.

According to Paul W. Wallace’s “Indian Paths of Pennsylvania”, New Kuskusky Town was located about where New Castle is today. It does appear that Tingooqua’s permanent village was at that location and that Catfish Camp was a temporary camp used by travelers.

Boyd Crumrine’s “History of Washington County” documents the existence of Catfish Camp in what is now downtown Washington and also mentions “a small stream entering Chartiers Creek” named Wissaameking, the Delaware word for Catfish, at that location. This information is reported on the Jefferson Township website currently and amplified by reporting that Tingooqua moved his camp several times as settlers built cabins near it. Incidentally, in several documents Tingooqua is also referred to as “Wissameek”.

Tingooqua was even a character in a well-known historical hoax. In 1945 a committee from the Greene County Historical Society published a three volume history of the early days in that area based on old documents allegedly uncovered by a man named William Horn. Included was an improbable version of the well documented 1749 expedition of French Canadian Celeron de Blainville in which he buried lead plates documenting France’s claim to the Ohio Country.

In contradiction to a large body of documentation on the location of these plates, several of which have been located, this document reports that several were buried in Greene County, by the equally improbable combination of de Blainville, Peter Chartier, Christopher Gist, and Tingooqua. I am surprised they didn’t include George Washington!

A committee of local historical societies investigated the Horn papers and concluded that they had all been forged. In 1946 they published an article reporting their findings, which have not been refuted. Being included in a fraud certainly reinforces the proof that Tingooqua was a real, contemporary person.

I am pleased that my mythical Chief Catfish has been replaced by a flesh and blood Native American, a significant contemporary of the first settlers in this area. Perhaps I should refer to Catfish Path as Tingooqua’s Trail in the future.

Skip Colussy December 29, 2016

Copyright © 2016       John F. Oyler

December 29, 2016

Skip Colussy

Curtis Copeland Jr. did a fine job convincing us that his father was indeed “Bridgeville’s Favorite Son”; the passing of Skip Colussy has me wondering if there is room for more than one person to claim that distinction.

I was three years behind Skip at Bridgeville High School, a Freshman when he was a Senior. I remember being particularly impressed that someone I knew was on the football team. His mother sponsored some sort of youth group at the Bethany Church, and we occasionally met at the Colussy home, so it was easy for me to consider Skip a friend.

The expression “easy for me to consider Skip a friend” could be his epitaph. Throughout his long, productive life he was typified by his easy going manner, his constant grin, and his inherent capability of making everyone feel he was their friend.

Skip went off to W and J after high school and then into the Army for a tour of duty in Korea. Upon his return from military service he married Virginia Keefner and went to work in the family business, Colussy Motor Company. In 1968 he took over the business from his father and shepherded its transition into one of the largest auto dealerships in the area. He was certainly the antithesis to our stereotype automobile salesman. Skip retired in 2000, turning the business over to his sons Tim and Jonathan.

Virginia was the perfect mate for Skip, his soulmate for fifty nine years until her death in 2012. She was a great lady and the perfect matriarch for that branch of the Colussy clan. I knew her when the Keefners first moved to Bridgeville and she became part of our Bethany clique. In fact I believe I took her to her first formal dance at Bridgeville High School. I remember feeling overwhelmed that my date for this affair was this beautiful, gracious young lady.

Folks of our generation are well aware of the popularity of nicknames in those days. I suspect a lot of people would have difficulty remembering that Skip had been named for his grandfather, Louis, and I am not sure he would have responded automatically if someone had addressed him as Louis.

There is a theory that the nickname Skip refers to a skipped generation, a situation like this one in which a grandson inherits his grandfather’s name rather than his father’s. It does seem logical.

Among the poignant photographs and artifacts at the funeral home for Skip’s viewing was a manikin dressed in an Army Sergeant’s uniform. The campaign ribbons were familiar to me. At the time Skip was coming home, I was going into the service and eventually ended up in the Far East. Although the cease-fire in Korea had occurred, those of us with cushy assignments in Japan still qualified for the same campaign ribbons.

Skip’s Korean service ribbon, however, also included three battle stars. I have no knowledge of his experience in Koran during the war; legitimate service heroes are consistently reticent about such events. According to the “News Obituary”, Skip ran a motor pool in Korea. I suspect there is a more significant story behind those three battle stars.

After his active retirement from the auto agency Skip continued his service to Bridgeville, including a term on the Borough Council. I was fortunate to have considerable contact with him related to his involvement in the Bridgeville Area Historical Society. His chairmanship of the Society’s Board of Directors brought a much needed business perspective to a struggling non-profit organization.

The last time I saw Skip was at the “Second Tuesday” workshop on the Greenwood neighborhood. We will miss his cheerful demeanor and relevant comments.

Christmas at the Neville House December 22, 2016

Copyright © 2016       John F. Oyler

December 22, 2016

Woodville Plantation

I have been aware of the Neville House since I was a child and have visited it many times since it became available to the general public. Nonetheless I seldom pass up the opportunity to go there. Their pre-Christmas Open House this year, “Christmas through the Centuries” was such an opportunity.

Originally constructed in the late nineteenth century, it is now known as Woodville Plantation and is owned and maintained by a non-profit volunteer organization, the Neville House Associates, as “a living history museum”.

John Neville purchased a block of land “five miles from Fort Pitt” in 1774; he became commandant at Fort Pitt (then known as Fort Dunmore) the following year. Construction of the house, then called Woodville, began at this time. It is believed that the original house was square, twenty five feet on a side, the part of the house that makes up the dining room and the middle hallway and stairs.

The kitchen was a separate building beyond the south wall. Eventually the space between it and the main house was enclosed, and an extension (the current parlor) added to the north wall. Associated with the house were numerous outbuildings and a beehive oven. The Nevilles occupied the house until 1814 when it was sold to Christopher Cowan for $14,000.

In 1835 Mary Ann Cowan Wrenshall inherited the house following her father’s death. Her ancestors occupied it until 1975, when it was acquired by the Pittsburgh History and Landmarks Foundation and opened to the public as a museum, and eventually transferred to the Neville House Associates.

The pre-Christmas Open House was structured to demonstrate the evolution of Christmas celebrations in this area in the early days. The parlor was sparsely decorated with a few sprigs of greenery on the mantle and on the pianoforte, as was typical of English society in the 1780s. Christmas was still treated as a solemn, sacred holiday, although Virginians like the Nevilles were prone to use it as an excuse for dinners and dancing.

The docent entertained us visitors by singing a carol, accompanied by the pianoforte, then illustrated a simple formal dance of the time. We were pleased to see that the pianist was an old friend, “Kiki” Barley, the director of the Pittsburgh Music Academy and the summer music camp my grand-daughter has attended.

Our next stop was the hallway, where a small German inspired table-top Christmas tree (Weihnachtsbaum) decorated with gingerbread men and paper chains signaled the gradual transition from the earlier Puritan approach that occurred at the beginning of the nineteenth century.

The dining room illustrated the traditions of the Victorian era, with a full-size floor mounted tree ringed with strings of popcorn and cranberries, overseeing a modest collection of old-fashioned toys beneath it, awaiting the arrival of the younger children in the family. The table settings were both formal and elegant, as was the custom of the time.

Our tour continued to the kitchen and its extremely impressive collection of colonial era cookware. Cooking over an open fire in a very large fireplace must have been a challenging task.    

Finally we went outdoors and entered the Still House, a reconstructed outbuilding whose walls are covered with relevant artwork and historic artifacts. I was particularly interested in a framed map that was inaccessible at the time. Later, when I inquired about it, I was advised that I could inspect it close up the next time I visited the Neville House.

I took advantage of this offer the following Sunday afternoon and was greeted by a very courteous lady, Susan O’Toole. With her blessing, I conducted my own tour of the Still House and was pleased to find that the framed document was actually an original survey of some of the land in that vicinity. The map clearly shows “the Washington Turnpike” from the bridge at the north end of Bridgeville to another bridge over Chartiers Creek at the northern end of Heidelberg.

When I returned to the office, I inquired about paying for a tour and explained that I was planning to write a column about the Neville House. “That isn’t necessary” she advised me before producing an admission sticker and writing “Press” on it. I have retained my Press pass and will attempt to exploit this special privilege in the future.

Our visit to “Christmas through the Centuries” was an appropriate demonstration of the evolution of customs for this wonderful holiday. I do wonder however how the early settlers in this region who were from Germany celebrated Christmas in the late eighteenth century. I suspect the Lesnetts and the Hickmans had Christmas trees and that their children looked forward for visits from Belsnickel and Saint Nicholas, even though their gifts were modest.

Curtis Copeland December 15, 2016

Copyright © 2016       John F. Oyler

December 15, 2016

Curtis Copeland

A record crowd turned out for the Bridgeville Area Historical Society’s November program meeting, confirming Curtis Copeland. Jr.’s assertion that his father was indeed “Bridgeville’s Favorite Son”. Although his presentation focused on Curtis Copeland, Sr.’s experience in the Korean War and the influence it had on his later life, it necessarily covered the entire life of this remarkable man.

Curtis was a year ahead of me in high school, graduating in 1948 and entering an adult world that was not particularly welcoming to a young African American boy. The economy was weak and jobs were hard to come by. I remember playing softball behind the high school with a group of young men who sarcastically described it as “the Unemployment League”.

Although the rest of us weren’t especially aware of it, there were still many areas in which African Americans were not treated as equals in those days, even in Bridgeville. My brother has a vivid memory of our father coming home one evening and being visibly upset because he had just learned that “a black man can’t be served in a restaurant in Bridgeville!”

Another ominous occurrence in 1948 was the escalation of the Cold War and the growing realization that there might well be another “shooting war” in the near future. The Soviets had blockaded Berlin and we had responded with the Berlin Airlift and the resumption of the draft, requiring compulsory service in the Army.

Faced with this environment an eighteen year-old Curtis Copeland elected to enlist in the U. S. Navy. After the normal routine of basic training, he was trained as an Operating Room Technician and earned the rating of Pharmacist’s Mate Third Class. When the Korean War broke out, June 25, 1950, he was given a cram course in triage and assigned to the First Marine Division as a battlefield medic.

The First Marine Division had an exemplary record in World War II, especially in the Guadalcanal, Pelieu, and Okinawa campaigns. They continued this performance in Korea, initially in the Pusan Perimeter, then in the Inchon invasion and the drive north to the Chosin Reservoir, and ultimately in the heavy fighting around the 38^th Parallel. In this conflict their casualties were 4004 dead, including 108 medics, and over 25,000 wounded.

Like most servicemen who have been involved in wartime combat, Curtis was reluctant to discuss his experiences with his family – only a few episodes were ever mentioned, but they were sufficient to clearly communicate the incredible horror of war.

The speaker began his presentation by recounting his father’s numerous accomplishments in the Bridgeville community after he came home, in an effort to justify the “Favorite Son” appellation, an un-necessary effort and a classic example of “preaching to the choir”. He then postulated that the character traits that his father consistently demonstrated were the consequence of three factors – his upbringing in a highly functional family, his Christian faith, and his Navy training and battlefield experience in Korea.

It is easy to agree with this proposition, but I would like to consider an additional factor. When his service was over and he was about to re-enter civilian life, he met a very special lady in New England and somehow managed to persuade her to marry him and return to Bridgeville with him.

When my wife was working in Bridgeville for the Greater Pittsburgh Guild for the Blind, she was responsible for identifying appropriate candidates for rehabilitation and facilitating their entry into the Guild’s program.  At some point she established a relationship with an agency in the Virgin Islands which resulted in a series of young adventitiously blinded Virgin Islanders coming to Bridgeville.

There is a significant psychological component to rehabilitation of visually handicapped persons, and she was justifiably concerned about the additional complications of introducing young black persons into an unfamiliar environment dominated by white folks. Almost immediately she reported she had a solution – “I’ll just call the Copelands!”

Eventually I realized “the Copelands” were Curtis and his wife Betty and that her problem was indeed in good hands. As volunteers at the Guild they were a powerful resource, always ready to take on any assignment without question. Their ability to make these frightened young trainees feel at home in a foreign environment was a major factor in the success of their rehabilitation.

I suspect Curtis’ “better half” was another major factor in forging his character. Betty is equally well known for her service to the community, whether it be neighborhood, church, or the Library. I am a firm believer in the synergy of a true marriage, its ability to be much more effective than the sum of the two individuals in it. Curtis and Betty Copeland are a perfect example of this concept.

The audience was duly appreciative of Curtis Jr.’s presentation and grateful to him for his sharing his perceptions of his father, indeed Bridgeville’s Favorite Son.

The next program in the Society’s series will be presented at 1:30 pm on Sunday, January 29, 2017, in the Chartiers Room at the Bridgeville Volunteer Fire Department, on Commercial Street. Dr. Jack Aupperle will discuss World War II naval hero, Admiral William Halsey. The public is welcome, as always.

 
 

 

Sanborn Fire Insurance Maps December 8, 2016

Copyright © 2016       John F. Oyler

December 8, 2016

Sanborn Fire Insurance Maps –1924 and 1931

Dana Spriggs has been a major contributor of artifacts to the Bridgeville Area Historical Society since its earliest days. Most recently he sent us full size copies of the Sanborn Fire Insurance maps for Bridgeville for 1907, 1913, 1924, and 1931. Produced primarily as a source of information for insurance companies, these large scale (one inch equals 100 feet) maps are sufficiently detailed to provide a wealth of information on our community in those years. We already had the 1907 and 1913 maps, but the two later ones are brand new to us and are extremely well appreciated.

The 1924 map shows a movie theater (“the Old Show”) on Station Street; the Rankin Theater (“the New Show”) on Washington Avenue has arrived by the 1931 map. Actually the earlier map still labels Station Street as Foster Street. Up the hill from the Old Show is a building identified as “Tailor”. In 1913 the J. H. Rankin store had been called a haberdasher’s.

Panizza’s  soft drinks bottling works is shown on Washington Avenue, a new arrival since the 1913 map. A dance hall is shown on Hickman Street, next door to an auto repair facility and a large garage on the corner with Washington Avenue. The 1931 map shows an auto sales facility in the building which had housed the dance hall, signaling the end of the Roaring Twenties, no doubt.

I was surprised to see two buildings adjacent to Washington School in 1924, each identified as “portable school rooms”.  By 1931 Lincoln High School had been built and put into operation on Gregg Avenue, but there still is shown one portable school room on the Washington School property.

The 1913 map shows two manufacturing facilities in the Coulter Street vicinity. The Frederick-Elder Company, “Manufacturers of Metal Specialties”, was located across Coulter from (then) St. Agatha’s Roman Catholic Church. By 1924 the site was described as “Fire Ruins”. The 1931 map shows a swimming pool (Crystal) at that location.

Similarly the 1913 map shows the Standard Steel Box Company across Villars (now an extension of Hickman Street) adjacent to the railroad. On the 1924 map the building is identified as “Vacant Factory”. Nothing is shown on that site on the 1931 map. These sequential maps provide an excellent opportunity for us to track the changes in every neighborhood.

Despite our interest in other things on the maps, it is still interesting to note the comments regarding fire safety scattered throughout them. The Mayer Building on the corner of Washington Avenue and Station Street includes a bakery on the Station Street side. It includes a notation “with portable oven”, an obvious reminder of a potential fire hazard.

Each of the maps includes coverage of the industrial facilities in nearby Collier Township – the C. P. Mayer Brick Company, the General Electric Glass Plant, Flannery Bolt, the Vanadium Corporation, and Universal Steel Corporation. For the General Electric facility the maps state “day and night watchman, approved auto sprinkler system, etc.” Interestingly, the Universal plant is described as “Admittance refused, no insurance”.

For the first time, the 1924 map includes a full page with considerable detail on Mayview, which is called “City of Pittsburgh Poor Farm”. Even more detail is shown on the 1931 map, with the name now becoming “Pittsburgh City Home and Hospitals”.

By 1924 Baldwin Street had been completely developed, although very few of the businesses there are identified, probably because they were store fronts in residences. One would think that that information would have valuable to insurance companies. The original St. George’s church on McLaughlin Run Road is designated “Syrian School”. There is no building on that site on the 1913 map; the one there on the 1931 map is unidentified. I was surprised to see the area between Greenwood and Baldwin Street described as “steep hillside”, a rare mention of topography.

It is also interesting to trace the evolution of street names during the years between 1913 and 1931. Today’s Bower Hill Road was Painters Run Road in 1913, at least as far as its intersection with (today’s) McLaughlin Run Road. The portion of today’s Bower Hill Road from Washington avenue to that intersection was known as the McKeysport and Noblestown Road, which then turned right and followed today’s McLaughlin Run Road to today’s Ridge Road, then went up that route and on to McMillan Road. This dates back to the original route of Noble’s Trace two hundred years ago.

By 1931 the borough had expanded south as far as Elizabeth Street where twelve houses had been built, as well as four on Chartiers Street. The Weise homestead is shown on that map as well as the Godwin greenhouse complex farther out Mayview Road.

Another gem on the 1931 is the depiction of the Board Speedway between Chartiers Creek and Millers Run Road. The one-half mile track is clearly shown, as well as grandstands and bleachers and the “Contribution Building”. A surprise to me was the fact that, inside the auto track, the facility boasted a quarter-mile dog track and kennels.

When I mentioned the dog track to my octogenarian friends, both Sam Capozzoli and Don Toney reported that they remembered it well. I suppose I can attribute this to the fact that they are both native born Bridgeville boys, while I didn’t immigrate here until 1934.

These four sets of maps are invaluable resources for all of us who are interested in Bridgeville history and are a welcome addition to the History Center’s archives. We are indebted to Dana Spriggs for providing them.

 

Kentuck Knob December 1, 2016

Copyright © 2016       John F. Oyler

December 1, 2016

Kentuck Knob

Frank Lloyd Wright’s masterpiece Fallingwater has long been a treasured asset of this region and a “must-see” destination for visitors here.  Recently a second Wright showplace, Kentuck Knob, has become available for public tours. Located near Chalk Hill on Route 40, east of Uniontown, it was constructed in the late 1950s and has been lovingly maintained ever since.

The I. N. Hagan family, of Uniontown, were close friends of the Edgar Kaufmann family and frequently visited them at Fallingwater. Through the Kaufmanns they were able to interest Mr. Wright in designing a deluxe Usonian house for them on a beautiful 80 acres site overlooking the Conemaugh Gorge.

Despite being heavily involved in designing the Guggenheim Museum the eighty six year old architect accepted the commission and produced another remarkable design, despite seeing the site only briefly during construction.

Wright coined the term Usonian to describe a concept of simple affordable homes constructed of local materials and being an integral part of their surroundings. His goal, in 1936, was to design a house with a floor plan of 1200 square feet that could be built for $6,000. Twenty years later the Hagans’ deluxe version cost $96,000 and provided 2300 square feet of floor space.

For cost comparison, in 1937 Jim Wallace designed and Sam Barzan built our house on Lafayette Street for $5,700. In 1964 my wife and I purchased a very respectable three bedroom house in Mt. Lebanon for $18,500. I suspect $96,000 would have put us in Virginia Manor in those days.

The Hagans enjoyed Kentuck Knob for thirty years before selling it to an English Lord, Peter Palumbo in 1986. Fortunately he has followed the English concept of historic property management by making the house available for public tours.

We had an excellent guide on our recent tour of Kentuck Knob, a young lady who was extremely knowledgeable and courteously patient with all of our questions. What a difference that makes in any tour!

The Hagans originally wanted their house to be located on the summit of Kentuck Knob; Wright insisted on building it into the hillside. He wanted it to be “of the hill, not on the hill”. His vision was vindicated by the final result.

The house consists of two low-roofed wings, meeting at a taller hexagonal central core. The wings are not at right angles to each other; in fact our guide challenged us to find any corner in the house that was at right angles. The core itself enclosed the kitchen. It was not a regular hexagon; I measured one side at nine and a half feet, an adjacent one at twelve feet. The architect was never bothered by orthodoxy.

A flat roof extended, again at an obtuse angle, from one wing, covering spaces for parking vehicles. Our guide informed us that Mr. Wright had coined the term, “carport”. She also showed us a small enclosed room in that wing that had been designed as a studio for Mrs. Hagan, an amateur painter. When she realized it had no windows at all, it was converted into a storage room.

The walls are constructed of Pottsville sandstone, layered in such a fashion that it suggests the natural strata of the rocks in the hillside. Grantsville flagstones make up the floor, with hot water pipes below them providing radiant heating. The woodwork throughout is tidewater red cypress, an exception to the architect’s preference for local building materials. After all, this has been designated deluxe.

One wing is dedicated to living space and features windows along one wall, providing a marvelous view down the hillside. The opposite wall has a continuous bench along it and clerestory windows high above eye level, to provide natural lighting.  The wing is filled with different Wright designed furniture, including a chair from the Imperial Hotel in Tokyo and a Mission style sofa from his famous Prairie House.

A particularly attractive feature of the house is the deck running the length of this wing, covered by an overhang from the roof, filled with open hexagonal skylights. The integration of interior spaces with the natural outdoor environment reaches its peak here. At the end of the deck there is a seamless transition to a beautiful flagstone patio, backed by a small waterfall.

The architect originally designed the end wall of this wing to be solid, a decision to which Mrs. Hagan objected, wanting to be able to see the long driveway leading up to the house, so she could anticipate the arrival of visitors. Wright compromised by adding an “invisible window”, a sheet of glass with no mullions nor frame. The result is the appearance that there is an unglazed opening in the wall.

The other wing contains an expansive master bedroom and a second bedroom used by the Hagans’ son. Wright had intended to limit the ceiling in the bedrooms to six feet, but relented when he learned the son’s height was six feet, three inches. Apparently the master architect mellowed when he became an octogenarian; he made numerous concessions to the Hagans’ wishes.

The dining room is adjacent to the central core and is also hexagonal. It too has the advantage of the marvelous view to the southeast through the extension of the deck. When the Hagans acquired the property it was mostly open farm land. They planted thousands of seedlings which have become a very impressive forest.

It is interesting to compare and contrast Fallingwater and Kentuck Knob and wonder how much Mr. Wright’s philosophies changed in the twenty years separating their construction. The Hagans’ house is certainly seems much more livable, while Fallingwater seems more like a monument, “a great place to visit, but….”.

At any rate we are quite fortunate to have both these treasures in our region; a visit to Kentuck Knob can be quite rewarding.