Children
"Corner 7th and Maplewood Ave. 1904
Looking North on Maplewood"
Laughlin Memorial Library archives
The furthest building on the left hand side, flying a flag or pennant, is Second Ward School, built in 1904. Second Ward School later became the Ambridge Recreation Center.
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Update October 3, 2016:
Sharp-eyed Maria Notarianni noticed that the building in the background on the right side of the photo resembled a church.
Indeed it does, which raises a question about the accuracy of the 1904 date on the photo above.
The only church that could possibly be is the Presbyterian Church on 9th and Maplewood. But according to the church's history, the contract for the construction of the oldest part of the church, "The Chapel," wasn't even let until September 1905. The Chapel was dedicated on June 12, 1906.
Here's a postcard showing that first section of the church, and the top of it sure does look like the small part of the building in question that can been seen in the photo above:
"The Chapel" First Presbyterian Church of Ambridge 9th St. and Maplewood Ave. postcard postmarked February 1907
I checked the 1905 Sanborn Insurance map of Ambridge, and it supports the church history's 1905 date. The lot on 9th and Maplewood is marked "site for church"; no building is shown on the lot. So, right now, I would have to say that the Maplewood Ave. photo may have been taken, at the earliest, in 1905 - '06.
St. Mathias* Church, built in 1905, was one of the first churches built in Ambridge. Like two other early Ambridge churches--the Methodist Episcopal and Zion's First Evangelical Lutheran, the building no longer exists. But unlike the other two congregations, which continued in new buildings, the St. Mathias congregation disbanded without ever building a second church.
St. Mathias Church
640 Park Rd.
postcard
postmarked January 1908
St. Mathias Church
640 Park Rd.
postcard
postmarked Nov. 11, 1908
According to the Old Economy-Ambridge Sesqui-Centennial Historical Booklet, the congregation disbanded in 1932.
If the building looks familiar to those of us who lived in Ambridge in the 1950s or earlier, that's probably because the former St. Mathias Church building was bought by St. Mary Byzantine Catholic Church (earlier called St. Mary Greek Catholic Church) in 1940, and used by that church until it was razed in the early 1960s when the current St. Mary's building was erected.
St. Mary Greek Catholic Church
Spang-Chalfant newsletter
November 1957
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St. Mathias Church was incorrectly identified as a 1906 St. Veronica's church in the book Ambridge by Larry R. Slater:
On October 5, 1933, one of the country's most violent anti-union confrontations took place in Ambridge. Striking workers from several Ambridge industrial plants were attacked by a large squad of armed sheriff's deputies in front of Spang-Chalfant in the 2300 block of Duss Ave. The October 6, 1933, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette described the area as a "bloody battleground." The fight left one bystander dead, and a large number of picketers, bystanders, as well as some deputies, injured.
News accounts of the violent event vary in their details, some of it conflicting, but the story below provides the basics.
"One dead, fifteen wounded in strike clash"
armed deputy sheriffs attacking picketers
Spang-Chalfant plant
October 5, 1933
Library of Congress photo
The strike tension began days earlier on October 2, 1933, when workers at Ambridge's large National Electric plant voted to strike to demand recognition of their union, the Steel and Metal Workers' Industrial Union (SMWIU), and a wage increase.
At the same time, Ambridge's Central Tube Co. was closed for an "employer's' holiday,"--workers had been locked out after they had demanded that the company recognize the same union.
Beaver County Sheriff Charles O'Loughlin, formerly the head of the Aliquippa J & L's Coal and Iron Police, already had deputies at both plants by the evening of October 2.
On October 3, National Electric's workers marched to the plant, and the company asked for time to think about their demands. Workers decided against returning to work, and the mill remained closed.
By then, workers at other Ambridge area plants--Spang-Chalfant, Wycoff Drawn Steel, H. H. Robertson, and A. M. Byers--had joined the strike.
On the afternoon of October 3, a delegation of union members, led by Spang-Chalfant workers, went to the Spang-Chalfant plant, where they were met by company police armed with rifles, machine guns, and tear gas guns.
The October 4, 1933, Post-Gazette, reported, "There was only one slight outburst of disorder in the Ambridge picketing, but Sheriff Charles J. O'Loughlin of Beaver county prepared for possible trouble by detailing part of his squad of 200 deputies, armed with riot and machine guns and tear gas bombs, to strike duty in Ambridge."
Despite the picket line in front of the plant, Spang-Chalfant remained open. Some workers tried to cross the picket line to go to work, but were attacked by the picketers. In response, the picketers were attacked with gunshots and tear gas from within the mill; one picketer was wounded.
On October 5, a large number of the special deputies recruited by Sheriff O'Loughlin began to march, carrying their weapons, to the Spang-Chalfant plant. They were led by the sheriff and County Detective Robert Branyan, and accompanied by Ambridge Burgess P. J. Caul and county District Attorney, A. B. de Castrique.
The deputy sheriffs, identified by white handkerchief arm bands, first stopped in front of Wycoff, on Duss Ave. immediately to the south of Spang-Chalfant. After the deputies were ordered to break up the picket line, one of them hit a picketer with a club. Hundreds of spectators began to run, joined by some of the picketers, although many remained on the line and heckled the deputies. The deputies responded by shooting tear gas into the crowd, which ran from the area.
When the deputies starting shooting into the crowd, they didn't discriminate between picketers, news reporters and photographers who had come to record the scene, or the spectators who had gathered to support the picketers or simply watch the action.
The Post-Gazette reporter described the scene as the deputies pushed into the crowd standing in front of Spang-Chalfant:
Townspeople, caught in the melee, as well as strikers and deputies were injured as bullets, sticks and stones, flew through the air in the several skirmishes of the drive. An undetermined number of combatants and spectators were overcome by fumes of tear-gas bombs as the hastily sworn-in deputies cut their way through the strikers. It took almost half an hour to complete the drive through the mill district. Stubborn resistance was offered at many of the mill entrances where pickets had gathered in numbers. But the relentless march pushed on. Tear gas bombs and bullets whistled through the crowds of strikers, spectators, women and children who thronged the streets. The various groups of pickets stood their ground but briefly and then ran for shelter. Bystanders, blinded by the tear gas and frightened by the rattle of gun-fire, rushed pell-mell from the scene, tripping over each other in their frantic dash to safety. Women, many of them with babies tightly clasped in their arms, others clutching hands of young ones barely able to toddle, ran screaming from the fire-zone.
A spectator, Adam Pietrusieski, who owned a confectionary store at 310 Fourteenth St. in Ambridge, was shot and killed, leaving a wife and three children. Published reports of where Pietrusieski was standing when he was shot and where he died, vary, as does the spelling of his last name.
Sheriff and deputies standing over body of Adam Pietrusieski Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
October 6, 1933
Post-Gazette caption:
Sheriff Charles O'Loughlin (center) and two of his deputies come too late to the aid of Adam Petesuski, 42, a spectator of the pitched battle, who was found dying in the street as the smoke and tear gas of yesterday's encounter before the Spang-Chalfant steel plant in Ambridge cleared away. He died soon after this picture was made before he could be taken to a doctor.
Others seriously hurt in the melee were taken to hospitals. One estimate says approximately 100 people were injured, many shot in the back.
The Ambridge Daily Citizen, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, and Pittsburgh Press provided extensive coverage of the strike and ensuing violence, but the news spread nationally. Patty Parra found these photos in a Salem, Ohio newspaper:
photos of Spang-Chalfant strike battle Salem News
October 9, 1933
courtesy Patty Garrity Parra
Salem News caption:
Graphic pictures from the strike front at Ambridge, Pa., where a clash between steel strikers of the Spang-Chalfant mill and 200 deputies resulted in the fatal shooting of one man and the wounding of 15 others. At top, heavily armed deputies and pickets face each other an instant before the deputies opened fire. Below, the battle in progress. Note man at right taking aim with a shotgun, while teargas routs strikers. In inset, a deputy bends over the buckshot riddled body of Adam Petesuski, slain strike picket.
The sheriff and Ambridge officials congratulated themselves for breaking the strike, a job well done, but an investigation of the violence by Pennsylvania Governor Pinchot's "Special Policing in Industry" committee that was created afterward, helped to end the use of "company deputies" like those involved in the Ambridge attack.
Update September 4, 2017, Labor Day:
I now own some vintage press photos of the armed sheriff's deputies--the strikebreakers--in action. The photo below, shot facing the south, shows the tear gas shot by deputies billowing across the 2000 block of Duss Ave. Note the "School Slow" sign. The tear gas was blowing towards Anthony Wayne Elementary School, located behind the houses on the east side of Duss. October 5, 1933, was a Thursday, so a school day. The deputies obviously didn't care. The back of the photo says: "Gas across Duss Ave. Ambridge to break up strikers as deputies charged."
Tear gas shot by strikebreaking deputies blows across the 2000 block of Duss Ave.
October 5, 1933
The photo below shows that same block today. The house on the east side of Duss with the second story porch and its neighbor on the corner are still there. The building on the far right of the 1933 photo, behind the deputy, is gone. But the homes beyond it remain.
2000 block of Duss Ave. looking south
Google Street View
The next photo shows some armed deputies walking south in the 2100 block of Duss Ave., approaching a group of strikers. That would place them just north of the Wykoff Drawn Steel mill. Spang-Chalfant was three blocks further north. Accounts of the strike say that the deputies marched north on Duss., broke up a gathering of strikers at the Wykoff mill, then proceeded up Duss to the Spang-Chalfant mill. So did these strikebreakers turn around to scare-off the strikers a second time? Or did some of the strikebreakers initially march south on Duss, as well as north, to surround the strikers? I don't have the answer to that. The note on the back of the photo says only: "Armed deputies driving strikers ahead of them on Duss Ave." The large white building on the right side of the photo is the original Anthony Wayne Elementary School. The house to its left is 2109 Duss Ave., and is still there, as is the smaller building on the left side of the photo.
Strikebreaking deputies approaching strikers
2100 block of Duss Ave.
October 5, 1933
Here's what that area looks like today, with the much altered Anthony Wayne building peeking from behind Vance's Auto Service:
2100 block of Duss Ave. looking south
Google Street View
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I've wanted to write about the 1933 Spang-Chalfant strike violence for a long time, but I felt I couldn't do the story justice. As my stack of research grew, I realized that if I waited until I felt I could tell the entire story as well as I wanted to, I might never write it.
This article is but a part of what I've learned so far about the working and economic conditions in Ambridge leading up to the strike, the use of special "company deputies" to break strikes and intimidate union supporters, anti-union sentiments held by Ambridge and county officials, as well as the sometimes conflicting details of the attack and further anti-union action taken by Ambridge officials, borough police, the sheriff, and his deputies.
During the first week of September 1945, a traveling exhibit of rare and odd animals came to Ambridge, and the unicorn surely had to be the rarest of all.
An ad for the show featured a beautiful, classic unicorn as depicted in folklore, with a horse-like head and a large horn on its forehead. Wow! And skeptics say they didn't exist. It looks pretty happy too. Of course "It's real. It's alive!!" Who would want to see a fake or dead unicorn?!
Animal Oddities Exhibit ad Daily Times
September 3, 1945
Although whoever sketched the unicorn for the announcement below, featuring the rare creature, did an awful job! Why, the unicorn almost looks like an ox or bull with a single horn, nose-ring included.
Animal Oddities announcement Daily Times
September 4, 1945
Still, rest assured, exhibit-goers would see the unicorn of myth. From the announcement:
Among the unique animals to be shown is the Unicorn, which dates back to the wanderings of the barbaric tribes before civilization. The single-horned animal, shown here, is greatly sought after for its wonderous powers of magic and medicinal values. The miraculous horn is always described as growing on the brow of a "beast so glorious, so virtuous, so beautiful that heaven granted the earth only one specimen at a time."
Now would an ox or bull fit that description? No!
Although there was only one unicorn on earth in September 1945, if you came to the field at 17th and Merchant Sts. in Ambridge, you could see it! Only 25¢ (plus tax) for adults; 10¢ (plus tax) for kids!
If the magical unicorn wasn't enough, there were 100 more "living curiosities" in the exhibit, including Belgian Bob, the world's largest living horse. And Nebcurhah, "The 3000-year-old man from the Valley of the Kings in Egypt." No mention of he was still living or not.
Animal Oddities Exhibit ad Daily Times
September 6, 1945
Lest you think that the ads might be making stuff up about the animals in the exhibit, here's a photo of Lone Star, the world's largest living steer.
Lone Star
World's Largest Living Steer Daily Times
September 5, 1945
The text under the photos said:
Beaver Countians will have the opportunity of viewing, "Lone Star" (pictured above) world's largest living steer, 9 feet tall and weighing around 3,000 pounds, showing with "Animal Oddities" exhibit, on transcontinental tour with the earth's strangest living oddities, now located on the showgrounds at 17th and Merchant streets, Ambridge. This unusual exhibit is on display through Sunday, September 9th in a large tent, and included in the oddities is the world's largest living horse measuring 19 1/2 hands, along with 100 other rare animals. Included in the exhibit are strange animals featured in "Believe It or Not", by Robert Ripley.
Surely, if Lone Star was that big, the unicorn was real!
