This blog post is a continuation of the story of the October 5, 1933, Spang-Chalfant anti-strike violence in Ambridge PA. If you haven't yet read about it, I recommend you read my blog post telling the story, illustrated by a number of photos and a newsreel: "Ambridge 1933 anti-union strike violence at Spang-Chalfant." If you have already read it, consider re-reading it. It's a shocking and sad story appropriate for Labor Day.
Strikebreakers on patrol after ending the strike at Spang-Chalfant
AP photo
October 6, 1933
Here's the Associated Press description on the back of the above photo:
Guard Steel Property: Deputies Sheriff are shown patrolling the railroad lines beside an Ambridge, PA., steel plant, around which there has been sporadic warfare between pickets and officers for several days. Tear gas and rifle fire have been resorted to by officers to halt the activity of pickets.
Since I first started researching the story of that strike, I have been struck by how the workers who were trying to unionize were not only beaten, shot, and teargassed by deputized strikebreakers, but also I've frequently been taken aback by the number of local officials who led, condoned, or were complicit in the violence against the strikers, including the Beaver County Sheriff Charles J. O'Loughlin, County Detective Robert Branyan, Ambridge Burgess P. J. Caul, and county District Attorney, A. B. de Castrique, as well as local police.
But the mistreatment of the workers, or those suspected of being union sympathizers, didn't stop when the strike did.
A 1995 article in the Buffalo Law Review * describes some of post-strike incidents:
The
next day, three carloads of police patrolled the streets breaking up groups of
three or more at gun point, even on the steps of their homes. Many were
routinely searched. Police raided the offices of the strikers to arrest several
leaders of the strike, carrying off records and cash, without warrants. Leaders
spent days in jail until released on habeas corpus. More than twenty men were fired at
Spang-Chalfant.
"Injured men were also interrogated about their work before treatment."
"Police violently interfered with people going to the funeral of the man killed [Adam Petrasuski], and two women, Edith Brisker and May Ecker, were arrested when they tried to speak to the crowd."
The Law Review article also tells the story of how a community member not involved in the strike was not only shot by the deputies, but also mistreated by the very people who should have cared for him:
Abuse was not limited to pickets, a bread delivery man showed the extent of municipal control.
I was near Twenty-fourth Street. There were no
pickets or strikers there. A bunch of deputies, not among those who came in
from the outside but from those who were inside shot at me. They were stationed
on the railroad tracks. I did not know what for. I had no stick or anything. I
was just watching from a distance what was happening when the fellows from the
railroad tracks shot at me hitting me in the back. . . .
When I first came to the hospital I had to
hang around in the waiting room. I was very sick, so I found a bench and lay
down. Pretty soon someone came to me, I don't know whether he was a doctor or
who, I was too sick to look up. He asked me "where you work?" I was
too sick to reply.
The same evening Dr. F.C. Forcey who is on the
staff of the Sewickley Valley hospital and who is also the company physician of
the Spang-Chalfant Company said to me "You are a red." I said
"sure, can't you see all the blood from my wounds." Then he said
"You ought to be shot."
Then Dr. Boruku, the second day when he went
to take the bandage off the wounds, asked me whether I cry. I said no. Then he
tore the bandage off my arms, tearing the hair with it. "You must be
tough," he said. Then when he started taking the bandage off my head he
said "We're going to have fun now." He tried to tear it off. It hurt
terribly, tears were rolling down my eyes, but I said nothing. He could not
tear the head bandage off, so he took the scissors and cut my hair.
After I collect more information, I hope to write more about what happened in Ambridge in the aftermath of the 1933 strike. Until then, on this Labor Day, think about how people literally fought and died for the employment rights and benefits many U. S. workers have today.
_____
* Casebeer, Kenneth (Winter, 1995) "Aliquippa: The Company Town and Contested Power in the Construction of Law," 43 Buffalo L. Rev. 617
This vintage playing card, featuring Ambridge's American Bridge Co. plant, was part of a deck illustrated with prominent Pittsburgh area scenes and buildings like the Pittsburgh Post Office and the Pittsburgh Exposition Buildings.
"American Bridge Co., U. S. Steel Co." playing card circa 1905
The person from whom I got the card described the deck as "Souvenir Playing Cards," manufactured circa 1905 for the May Drug Co., which was a well-known Pittsburgh pharmacy chain. If that date is right, the card shows how large the plant already was by the time Ambridge was incorporated in 1905.
The footbridge in the foreground allowed steelworkers to cross the train tracks and passengers to access the train platforms.
Here's the back of the card:
Playing card back
A picture of the "Fort Duquesne" Block House--the still-standing Fort Pitt Block House--is centered on the back. The City of Pittsburgh seal is on both sides of the Block House.
The tartan pennant at the top is that of the Carnegie Technical Schools, the predecessor to Carnegie Institute of Technology, currently Carnegie Mellon University.
A University of Pittsburgh pennant is at the bottom.
The two other pennants have City of Pittsburgh seals.
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
____
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.
In 1969, the Ambridge Works, Armco Steel Corp., won Armco's Iron Man award for outstanding safety. According to the Jan. 28, 1970, Beaver County Times, the Ambridge Works beat out Butler PA, Baltimore MD, Houston TX, and Ashland KY plants for the award.
The award was presented at a Feb. 5, 1970, ceremony at the plant. I'm guessing the keychain in these photos was distributed to employees to mark their achievement.
Iron Man Award Keychain Armco Ambridge Works 1969 Side 1
Iron Man Award Keychain Armco Ambridge Works 1969 Side 2
According to the Times article: "The Armco Iron Man contest began in 1925....The Ambridge Works became eligible to compete in 1962." In that first year, the Ambridge plant ranked last.
At the time of the award, the plant employed about 1,700 workers. When it closed in 1985, 1,200 employees lost their jobs. The plant's former site is now the location of the Ambridge Regional Distribution and Manufacturing Center.
Michigan's Mackinac Bridge was the longest suspension bridge in the world when it was built in the mid-1950s. The bridge was an engineering marvel and one of the American Bridge Company's greatest bridge construction projects.
American Bridge's Ambridge plant, at that time the largest structural steel fabricating plant in the world, fabricated the bridge's towers.
According to the Mackinac Bridge Authority,
The towers were fitted together horizontally at Ambridge, PA., taken apart and shipped by rail to St. Ignace (MI). The pieces were then placed on a barge and towed to the site and the creeper set them in place. This was like putting together a puzzle.
I'm not sure what phase of fabrication the photos below show. Maybe someone who knows more about this project can provide some helpful descriptions.
Fabrication of Mackinac Bridge towers American Bridge Co., Ambridge circa 1955 credit: Mackinac Bridge Authority
Fabrication of Mackinac Bridge towers American Bridge Co., Ambridge circa 1955 credit: Mackinac Bridge Authority
Fabrication of Mackinac Bridge towers American Bridge Co., Ambridge circa 1955 credit: Mackinac Bridge Authority
Fabrication of Mackinac Bridge towers American Bridge Co., Ambridge circa 1955 credit: Mackinac Bridge Authority
Fabrication of Mackinac Bridge towers American Bridge Co., Ambridge circa 1955 credit: Mackinac Bridge Authority
Fabrication of Mackinac Bridge towers American Bridge Co., Ambridge circa 1955 credit: Mackinac Bridge Authority
The plant was closed for virtually all production in mid-1982, and closed for good in the spring of 1984.
When I first wrote this article, I had only the first two photos below. But now I have a third, and there's more information about this American Bridge project written on its back, so see the update below.
I don't know more about this American Bridge Co. project than the notes written on the back of these two press photos.
If you know any additional details about the project, please leave a comment.
This is the press note on the back of the first photo below:
"U. S. Army containers. Made by the American Bridge co. being tested on the Ohio R. These containers are made to keep guns dry."
Testing Army gun containers on Ohio River
American Bridge Co.
Ambridge
January 7, 1946
Testing Army gun containers on Ohio River American Bridge Co. Ambridge January 7, 1946
That's the still-standing historic Ambridge-Aliquippa Bridge in the background of the photos above.
Update July 15, 2017, another photo, more information:
Final test of ammo containers
American Bridge Co.
Ambridge January 11, 1946
Here what the back of the photo above says:
The final test for Army storage cans, Pittsburgh, PA.--Big cans, designed for the Army as protective containers for preserving Army equipment, went through the final test of their efficiency and came through successfully. As a test of waterproofness, they were dunked in the Ohio River, near Pittsburgh, and proved to be watertight. The loaded cans can be tossed overboard in places where there are no dock facilities, and be towed to shore by smaller boats or allowed to wash ashore. Photo shows: After the test, the can is loaded back on the flatcar on which it traveled 6300 miles from Pittsburgh to the West Coast and back, to test its endurance in all climates.
If you look closely, you can see a bit of the Ambridge-Aliquippa Bridge in the background of this photo too.
I primarily liked today's group photo because it seemed quirky. I'm assuming that it wasn't routine for striking steelworkers to bring their young children to a picket line. It's from the June 5, 1952, Beaver Valley Times.
But once I reread the caption a few times, I realized that the photo was notable for other reasons.
First, the caption reflected the expected childcare responsibilities of the era.
Original caption:
BABY SITTING PICKETS--While the wife is away the steelworkers will pay--with their leisure and "picket-time." Anyway, two H. H. Robertson's Steel Company picketing steelworkers do double duty taking care of their children and standing picket duty. Bud Marquette, with daughter Beverly, 18 months, and Jack Robertson, with son Harry, 9 months, left to right, stand picket, which Nick Stellato, Clifford Lane and Steve Sawchak look on.
It appears Nick Stellato was cropped out of the photo, but still listed in the caption.
The caption starts with the typical 1950's assumption that men only took care of their kids when their wives were "away," and as a result, the poor beleaguered men not only had to drag their kids to the picket line, but also had to give up their leisure time. Because men's leisure pursuits never involved their kids.
Then there was the importance of the strike itself, one of a number of strikes that took place in 1952. Around the same time the steelworkers went on strike, oil workers, telegraph workers, bakery drivers, and bakery and confectionery workers were on strike.
The nationwide steelworkers' strike was especially important because it started on June 2, 1952, the day the U. S. Supreme Court, in the landmark case, Youngstown Sheet and Tube Co. v. Sawyer, held that President Truman had no legal authority to seize steel mills. Truman had seized the mills in April 1952 to ensure the production of steel during the Korean War.
The Robertson picketers must have felt being on the picket line posed no danger to their children and didn't expect the kind of violence that occurred during strikes in the 1930s, including the 1933 strike in Ambridge that resulted in a bystander being killed by sheriff's deputies, and others wounded or clubbed.
But the mood wasn't as peaceful only weeks before at Aliquippa's J & L, when a brief strike followed a lower court ruling that the president's seizure was illegal. The April 30, 1952, Beaver Valley Times described the scene:
For several tense hours on Tuesday night it was 1936 all over again...(the) only element missing from the reenactment of the dramatic labor-management struggle of the middle 1930's was the smack of clubs against labor skulls.
The steel strike lasted 53 days, ending only after Truman intensely pressured both sides to come to a settlement.
Today is Veterans Day, so it seemed like an apt day to post this:
Spang-Chalfant Veterans Memorial Beaver Valley Times
July 15, 1954
Original caption:
SPANG-CHALFANT MEMORIAL -- John Delai, left, and Lawrence McCandless, right, read the inscription on the new memorial bronze plaque erected in honor of employes of Spang-Chalfant Division of National Supply Company, Ambridge, who served in the U. S. Armed Forces.
According to the article that appeared with this photo, this memorial was a replacement for one that had been erected during WWII, but had deteriorated due to weather.
The new memorial, designed by two employees of Spang's industrial relations department, Lee Crane and William Cramer, was designed to withstand weather and be a "perpetual memorial." The bronze plaque was mounted on a wall 10 feet high and 8 feet wide built with 1,500 bricks, topped with a limestone slab, and resting on a concrete base.
The memorial plaque, minus its wall, is now in Ambridge's P.J. Caul Park on 11th and Merchant Sts.
Spang-Chalfant Veterans Memorial
P. J. Caul Park
March 22, 2014
credit: Nancy Knisley
The plaque's inscription reads:
SPANG This tablet is dedicated in sincere tribute to our employees both living and dead, who anwered the call of duty to serve in the armed forces of the United States. * * * * * * * * * Let us cherish the sacred memory of their struggle to preserve our American heritage, that government of the people, by the people, for the people shall not perish from the earth. Spang-Chalfant Division of the National Supply Company
It's Labor Day, so in honor of all the laborers who built this country, I'm posting a photo of an Armco Ambridge ID tag from Bob Mikush's collection. Armco closed its Ambridge plant in 1985.
In honor of Father's Day, I'm posting this photo of one of the American Bridge duckpin teams since my dad, Paul (Rusty) Bohinsky, is in it. It's from the May 7, 1952, Beaver Valley Times.
American Bridge Duckpin Bowling Team Beaver Valley Times
May 7, 1952
Text below photo:
CHECKING DUX TOURNEY SCORES--Five Ambridge bowlers examine the score sheets after rolling in the TIMES-sponsored Beaver Valley Singles Elimination Tournament at the Beaver Valley Bowl Tuesday evening. They are: kneeling, Paul Bohinsky, standing (left to right), Bob Heaton, Roger Canonge, George Meehan, and Rudy Svegel. They were members of the first of two American Bridge Company squads to bowl last night.
We were a bowling family, duckpins and tenpins. My maternal grandparents, with whom I lived, bowled. My mom still bowls almost weekly at age 88 with one of my cousins! I joke that she bowls on a two person team in a one team league, as the rest of her former bowling buddies are no longer bowling...for one reason or another.
Most of my family were good bowlers. I remember the many trophies lined up on a variety of flat surfaces in our house.
I bowled tenpins at Economy Lanes in the Divine Redeemer CYO league. I was not good.
You can read about bowling dux at the Ambridge Alleys by clicking here.
Verrazano-Narrows Bridge Beaver County Times,
November 21, 1964
November 23, 1964, was "American Bridge Day" in Ambridge. The iconic Verrazano-Narrows Bridge linking Staten Island with Brooklyn was opened on November 21, and Ambridge's Mayor Walter Panek issued a proclamation recognizing the contribution of American Bridge Company's Ambridge mill and its employees in the bridge's construction.*
The text under the photo above says:
LONGEST SUSPENSION BRIDGE - New York's famed skyline fades into the background as the mighty new Verrazano Narrows Bridge takes the spotlight this week. Spanning the foot of New York Harbor between Brooklyn, right, and Staten Island, this breath-taking and record-breaking bridge will be opened for traffic today at 3 p.m. U.S. Steel's American Bridge Division, Ambridge, general contractors for the four main cables and the suspended roadway--including the record 4,200-foot long main span--was applying the necessary final touches when this photo was taken.
The November 21, 1964, Beaver County Times reported the bridge was said to be "the most spectacular yet built." An engineering marvel, the bridge was the world's longest suspension bridge at the time, and the mill workers at Ambridge's "Bridge Works" had fabricated materials for the bridge for almost three years, including 142,500 miles of the wire needed for the bridge's main cables. The mill also fabricated the bridge's suspended roadway.
According to the Times, Mayor Panek's proclamation declared "the might and ingenuity of local individuals played a vital roll [sic] in the bridge's design, fabrication, and construction." He noted that the mill "contributed substantially to the economy of our community" and "our fathers and forefathers found their first opportunity in America at the Ambridge Plant."
My father worked as a fitter** at American Bridge, one of the best I'm told. Putting the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge parts together was one of his proudest accomplishments. The bridge was one of two structures he helped to build that he wanted to see when we visited New York in 1964. The other was the Unisphere at that year's World's Fair.
* The workers who actually built America's greatest structures like the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge are usually under-appreciated and overlooked. The American Bridge steelworkers at least were recognized by Mayor Panek's proclamation and an "American Bridge Day" in Ambridge. The New York City area steelworkers who built the bridge weren't even invited to the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge's big opening day ceremony according to a segment on MSNBC's The Reid Report on November 21, 2014. Instead, the snubbed steelworkers attended a mass honoring the steelworkers who had died while working on the bridge.
* *Jay Deiter, who grew up in Ambridge near American Bridge and in the 1970s worked as an assistant to a fitter at Bethlehem Steel, described a fitter's job this way: "A fitter is someone that can take pieces of steel, look at a set of blueprints, envision the assembled and finished project, correct engineering mistakes on the spot, build what is in front of him, sign off on his completed work and always be proud of his work and his craft!"
American Bridge footbridge over Ohio River Blvd. Beaver Valley Times,
February 13, 1954
Original photo caption:
BRIDGE TO PLANT Motorists using Route 88 in the Ohio River Boulevard, one of the most heavily-traveled highways in the state, pass under this bridge entering U.S. Steel's Ambridge plant of the American Bridge Company.
When I started this blog a little over a year ago, I started looking for photos of Ambridge icons--distinctive and beloved parts of the borough that, at least at one time, meant "this is Ambridge." Many of those icons are now gone.
One of the photos I searched for again and again, in many places, was the American Bridge Company footbridge over Ohio River Boulevard, once state Route 88, now Route 65.
The footbridge began at the southwest side of the American Bridge office property and was used by workers to cross the boulevard to enter and leave the mill area.
I felt there had to be photos of the footbridge, but my hunt had been fruitless until this morning.
Yesterday, reader Maria Notarianni sent me a link to an article about Gutowski's Bakery that she'd found in the February 13, 1954, Beaver Valley Times, and she mentioned that that issue of the Times had a number of articles about Ambridge businesses. This morning, I started browsing the paper, and there was the long-sought after footbridge photo! Finally.
I remember so well waiting to pick up my dad after his shift ended on the rare days my mom had the use of our only car, parking on Park Road near the bridge, watching for him to appear.
I was so proud that travelers driving by on busy Ohio River Boulevard could read the sign on the footbridge announcing that Ambridge's American Bridge plant was the "Largest structural steel fabricating plant in the world." What an extraordinary mill it was.
Park Road end of the sidewalk that once led to the American Bridge footbridge
1951
Laughlin Memorial Library archives
"Bridgeworks" workers crossing over footbridge to mill, Beaver County Times,
November 7, 1979
Original text with photo:
SHORT TIME - Workmen walking to their jobs at U. S. Steel Corp.'s American Bridge Division Ambridge may well be wondering whether they are on "short time"--the time between when a decision is mde to close the plant and when the plant actually closes. The 950 union members will meet Sunday morning to hear the steel giant's proposal for the future of the plant.
U.S. Steel contends the plant is no longer competitive in the steel fabricating market.
The mill was closed for virtually all production in mid-1982, and closed for good in the spring of 1984. The footbridge is gone. I do not know when it was taken down. If you know, please leave a comment.
When I visited the American Bridge office site in November 2013, when the razing of the building had begun, the sidewalk that once led from Park Road to the footbridge ended abruptly above Ohio River Boulevard.
End of sidewalk that once connected to the American Bridge footbridge,
November 20, 2013
by Robert Giles Most of the time, Dad wore a fedora – the one I remember
best was black and grey herringbone tweed. There was a tiny blue feather in the
hat band.
It sounds dressy and it may have started out that way. But hats have
a way of getting more comfortable after two or three years. I think that
particular hat served Dad at least eleven years. Near its end, it looked extremely comfortable.
Dad wore the fedora to church or when he went to
the bank or when we visited relatives. When he went to work in the mill, he
wore a grey cloth cap like a baseball cap, only with
lighter material and a wider visor. It had tiny metal grommets that circled the crown. At the apex was a small round metal button.
Was there a badge with a number on it pinned above the brim?
I think there was, at least during the early days. It must have identified him as an employee of the Bridge Company.
Sometimes he pinned his fishing license to his hat and forgot
it was there. Mom would remind him that he wasn’t out on a stream bank and hinted
that he could unpin it.
Mom was the family barber and gave Dad a haircut every six
weeks. He never ever went to a barber after he married Mom.
Mom wasn't always a steady hand with the clippers – I can show you photographs to prove it. Dad didn’t mind. Why spend good money on a fussy haircut when
you’re going to cover it up with a hat anyway?
Dad sure had a big
round head. I remember trying on his hat when I was nine or ten. It
came down over my eyes. If I bent forward even slightly, the hat fell on the
floor.
In winter he wore a red and black plaid hunting cap. It had
ear flaps that you could leave tucked up underneath if you were vain about appearance or didn't mind the cold. Dad wore his flaps down from November through March.
I’m pretty sure he took his hat off when he went to bed. Mom
made sure he took it off in church - it was customary for a man to remove his
hat in a public building. The hat creased his hair and flesh in a circle where it rested on his head. It left an imprint like the one you might see on the head of a king who had doffed his crown. No one would mistake it for a halo.
Dad always wore boxer shorts, and thin sleeveless undershirts. Over these he wore long-sleeve
shirts, winter and summer. The shirts always had matching breast pockets – the pocket
on the left contained a complimentary “pocket protector” from the hardware
store and a mixed row of pens and pencils.
He bought work suits at J. C. Penny’s – dark
blue-green pants and shirts – cotton twill. He would buy several sets and wear
them six days a week for several years, then replace them, alternately buying
gray or olive ones.
Dad favored a monochrome look although once in a while a
plaid flannel shirt would work its way to the top of his bureau drawer.
His socks matched his pants and shirt - a paler shade of
the same color. He wore ankle-high ocher leather boots with heavy treaded
soles and waterproofing. He held up his pants with a wide leather belt.
A Stanley tape measure was hooked to his belt. He carried a
pen knife in his pants pocket. Sometimes he had sawdust on his sleeves.
He was five foot eight, and weighed 200 pounds for most of his adult life. Dad called it “husky”. He was low and thin in the hips but big through the chest and arms. His shoes were triple EEE wide.
He wore glasses – the kind with frames that are dark on top
and clear on the bottom. Dad was always about 20 years behind – not that he
knew it or cared. He wore loud, wide neckties from the forties through the 50s and 60s. His ties came back in style in the 70s.
When he went to work, Dad carried a Thermos and a brown shopping bag with
sandwiches, oatmeal cookies, a banana, magazines and two or three paperback novels (“pulp” he admitted
freely). He liked anything by Louis L'Amour or Zane Grey. He always read the
Saturday Evening Post, and Outdoor Life or Field and Stream. He was a craneman and read through his breaks since he didn't want to bother returning to earth.
Dad considered the rainbow trout to be the world’s finest
expression of beauty, but on a road trip, he would pull onto an overlook and order
everyone out of the car to appreciate the sun going down over the mountains.
Dad lived to be ninety-five. He looked like a stranger lying
there in his casket among the flowers, in a dark suit, motionless, thin and without his hat.
1952 Daily Citizen photo showing Margaret and Edward Barlow
buying a Christmas tree from Edward Carrera
at a Merchant Street lot
This newspaper photo comes from my friend Marge Barlow Kosis, who I've known since kindergarten at Divine Redeemer School, which is a lot of years. It shows "Margaret Louise" and her dad, Edward Barlow, buying a Christmas tree at a Merchant Street lot.
The "DC" watermark in the lower right corner of the photo indicates that this is a photo from the Daily Citizen. Based on Margaret Louise being identified as being "age three," it was taken in 1952. I have yet to find an exact date.
The text under the photo says:
THREE WAYS IN DETERMINING THE PRICE of Christmas trees are its fullness, size and type state owners of the lot on 11th and Merchant St. Owners are Carrera Brothers and Frank Polce. Prices are from $1 and up. In the picture Edward Carrera right, aids Edward Barlow, left, 1002--10th St., in purchasing a tree while Margaret Louise Barlow, age three, looks on. Types of trees are red pine, Scotch pine, bank pine, Canadian balsam, Norway spruce and Canadian spruce.
by Robert Giles On the edge of Byers’ Field, 50 yards west of the Byersdale Isaly
store, there was a basketball court. How it got there I can’t say. It was “always”
there. I hope neighborhood kids are driving in for layups and sinking baskets there today.
The court was once covered with the heavy limestone slag that paved the roads in Byers’ Field. Someone had removed the heavy stones and
replaced them with a much finer grade of slag, smooth enough for dribbling a
ball. A pole, about 18 inches in circumference and about 12 feet high, had been
erected on the north end of the court. A sheet of ¾ inch plywood had been
bolted to the pole to serve as a backboard.
All in all, it was a pretty good basketball court, not as nice
as the one at the playground on top of the hill in Byersdale, which had hoops on both ends. But the township
had built that one with the help of contractors.
Our “bottom of the hill” basketball court didn’t require a long
steep climb up Dearborn Street and it wasn’t a mud hole after a rain, even if we did have to play "half-court".
The site came ready-made for those who erected the pole. The government had bulldozed and “paved” the court and encircled it with
trailers to create instant housing during World War II. There were more than a
dozen such courts in Byers’ Field. During the war, men came to Byersdale from
far and wide to work at jobs in the A.M. Byers plant, then the "world's largest" manufacturer of wrought iron.
The courts were laid out like suburban cul-de-sacs, minus
the green lawns, concrete pavement, and split-level houses.
I don’t remember seeing trailers there when I was a boy. By
then the housing and the people who lived there were long gone. There were just
empty courts and empty streets.
Byers’ Field sure looked like an abandoned neighborhood. I
asked what all the roads were for. People didn’t have a lot to say.
I came to understand that migrants, mostly "foreigners", lived there during
the war. After the war, they had gone back home. End of
story.
It seemed like everyone must have been working and playing so hard that
they scarcely noticed the strangers in their midst.
I wonder what those strangers did in the evenings and
weekends. Did they attend church, send and receive mail, patronize the stores, drink
with their friends in local bars, dance, sing, have a life outside of Byers' Field?
Did some of the men bring or send for their wives and
children?
Perhaps it was a group of those iron makers who erected our
basketball court. They may have enjoyed a game of hoops in the evenings.
“The
A.M. Byers Company owned extensive vacant acreage east and north of its plant.
The company leased the north plot to the U.S. Government who then placed 450
trailer homes on wheels on this site to accommodate shortages of living space
for the area's defense workers. The quarters were equipped with running water,
electric power, butane tanks and underground sewage piping.
Most
of these defense workers (migrants) were brought in from Mexico, Portugal, Cuba
and American Appalachia. Immediately after the end of the war, these workers
were laid off. They returned to their homelands loaded with American War Bonds
and cash. It can well be assumed that a low, unknown, percentage stayed on in
this area. They scattered here and there blending in to various communities.”
by Robert Giles What a curious thing memory is. All those steelworker picnics and I remember four things. We've covered three of them - Dad making a "Huey" on the turnpike, urban blight in the sticks, and the Wildcat. What is the fourth? Let's go back to that residential street that led us into Idora Park.
“Dad, stop the car. Are those apples under that tree?”
If they were apples, they were the biggest, yellowest apples
I had ever seen. Maybe they were grapefruit. My brother got out of the car and
fielded a couple.
He passed them around. They were heavy and solid. Their skins were folded and bumpy like the hide on an elephant’s elbow.
We had never seen anything remotely like them.
“Those are Osage oranges”, Dad said authoritatively.
“They’re not really oranges. You can’t eat them.”
“What are they good for?”
“Put one under your bed and it’ll keep away bugs. Grandma
used to think so anyway. The tree has to be very strong and flexible to bear
all that heavy fruit. That's why Indians made their bows from the wood.”
Dad isn’t around anymore to tell us more. We'll have to make do with a link to Wikipedia - maclura pomifera.
...
Besides the one in Youngstown, the only other Osage orange tree I have ever seen stands on the edge of the Delaware Bay in Battery Park, New Castle DE. I took the photograph at the top of this article at Battery Park. Some day I hope to see a tree in its natural habitat - the Red River Valley.
Courtesy, the Author
Before then I will have to be content with chucking an "orange" into the Delaware Bay when I visit New Castle DE (pictured on left).
...
I moved my family to New Castle PA (that's Pennsylvania, not Delaware) in 1978 and lived there for ten years. My wife and I went scouting before the move. We drove north on Route 18. The same decrepit building I first met in 1956 - 1957 greeted us near Wampum. A light bulb still gleamed in a window.
In the 80s Lawrence County began selling itself as a good location for new business. Corporate representatives visited to weigh the pros and cons of locating there. Naturally, when they saw the Wampum area they were taken aback. The crumbling apartments along Route 18 were certainly not representative of the entire county, but what did they say about the effectiveness of county, borough, and township governance?
The at-grade railroad crossing further up the road at Mahoningtown didn't help. Railway crossings may be picturesque, but they are outmoded and accidents do happen. Route 18 was then the county's southern link to the Pennsylvania Turnpike. Not exactly modern, is it? This town is a bit of a backwater, don't you think? How about a game of checkers while we wait on the train? In the early to mid '80s, the "eyesore" at Wampum was finally torn down because it was bad for business. It had been unfit for human habitation for a very long time before that, as even a child could see. Take a look for yourself at Lawrence County Memoirs.* *Jeff Bales, Jr., site creator and author.
by Robert Giles The sign said Wampum PA – one mile. We were still on Route 18 north. We had crossed into Lawrence County.
“Holy moley." I pointed to a ruin of a building set back about 50 yards from the road at the base
of a hill. “That looks like one of those
buildings in Europe that were bombed during World War II.”
Perhaps a Panzer Division had come south on Route 18 and annihilated the inhabitants. No, there was evidence of life - washing on a clothes
line, a lone bulb lighting an apartment window, smoke drifting from a chimney
pipe. There were even children playing baseball in a field. "There can't be people living there, there just can't be."
“Bobby, people have been living there since I was your age.
The building has always been kind of seedy, I guess "dilapidated" is the word for it today. It used to be
housing for the cement company up ahead. I don't know who the devil owns it now.”
“What do they do when it rains?”
We came to one of those enclosed conveyor systems that carried
stone down from the ridge on the east. It looked like a small covered bridge on stilts - a crazy snaking one built over dry land. It went all the way up into the hills toward Ellwood City.
“Out of sight on that hilltop there’s a limestone quarry and a big steam
shovel. The limestone is pulverized before it comes down to the plant on that conveyor."
My mood brightened. The thought of riding a conveyor down the hillside
reminded me that we were going to Idora Park.
Soon we were sitting in Mahoningtown waiting for the train
to clear at the railroad crossing. I read the names on the boxcars - Erie Lackawanna, Santa Fe, Burlington Route, Ashtabulah.
“Stop bouncing, Bobby, you’re squashing my knee”, my sister gave
me a pinch.
We finally arrived in Youngstown. At the end of a
residential street was the amusement park. Idora was then or became known for its horticulture, its antique
carousel, and its wooden roller coaster, the Wildcat.
It’s the Wildcat I remember best. I was probably too small to
pass the height requirement on that first visit. My first
ride on the Wildcat happened a few years later.
There was a long wait in line on picnic days. When we got to the ramp, we had to wait another ten minutes to get on the platform. Then we had to stand until the seats emptied for the next ride. If we were very lucky, we got a seat in the first car with nothing in front but the wind.
Finally it was time to ride. We fastened a lap belt across the width of the car. Then we pulled a metal bar down that held us tight against the seat
back. A worker checked each seat to make sure we were ready for takeoff.
Right off the bat we went down a hill, a small one I grant you. But how many roller coasters start with a descent? "Duck, Bobby, that overhang will take your head off." Into a tunnel we went. We might see a thin beam of light through a pinhole or two, but otherwise it was complete darkness. From blackness we emerged into bright sunlight. That put a strain on the old eyes, didn't it? Before us was an impossible hill. There was a clank as a chain gear engaged. The chain pulled the coaster a foot at a time to the top. It seemed to take forever. At the crest of the hill, time stopped entirely as you stole a glance at the abyss. Down, down, down. That always gave me the willies. From the top of the first hill, you were the plaything of Newton's Laws, a marble dropped on a set of rails. The hill gave you enough
momentum to take you through the rest of the ride and out onto the platform with a whoosh.
Don't ride a wooden coaster if you're not willing to be jerked around. The Wildcat had four hills, each with steep descents. There was a hairpin turn at the start of the final stretch. The abrupt deceleration when you sailed onto the platform at ride's end gave you a whiplash.
A sign cautioned those with medical
conditions not to ride the Wildcat. It was good advice. For some people the sound of a a roller coaster is screaming voices and the clatter of wheels. For me it is the clank of the chain engaging on that first steep hill. If you want a happy, unguarded expression for a photograph, stand with your camera and wait for your subject to come down from the Wildcat. All shields are down. The danger is over. They're glad to be alive.
(For a moment there, I sounded like there was still a
Wildcat to ride ... but the famous Wildcat has gone the way of the saber-tooth and the giant ground sloth.)* _____
*"Heavily damaged by fire on 4/26/1984. What wasn't destroyed by fire was finally demolished on 7/26/2001." - Roller Coaster Database Idora Park Today - Google Maps
