Transportation drives the day
On Sept. 20, 1911, thousands of people picked up their morning edition of the Pittsburgh Gazette-Times to read about the news of the day. Out of the 16 stories found on the surprisingly large front page, there would have been three that really caught the attention of readers.
The first story had a headline that read: Convict Comes Back; Mother Says Imposter. It was about a man named George Alfred Kimmel, who had spent the previous decade in the New York State Penitentiary. Upon returning to his hometown, Kimmel was greeted by old friends and relatives, many of whom questioned whether he was really the same man who had left town 13 years earlier.
Kimmel’s own mother believed that this man was not her son, and that this imposter had come to Niles to defraud her out of a $2,500 life insurance policy. When police questioned the man, he told them that he had been “slugged by holdup men” way back in 1899, and that since then, his memory was “not so good.” However, he knew intimate knowledge about his family and childhood friends in Niles. The cops were eventually satisfied that this was, in fact, George Alfred Kimmel. Whether his mother ever came around is something lost to history.
The second story’s headline read: Girls Jump From Windows: Scared by Fire, Gallant Onlookers Help Them. Fires in high-rise buildings and factories were a serious problem in the early 20th century, when firefighting technology was just beginning to modernize. Just seven months earlier, the horrific Triangle Shirtwaist factory fire in New York City had claimed the lives of 146 garment workers. That tragedy was still fresh in the minds of Americans who were clamoring for more “fireproof” buildings.
So, when locals heard about a fire at the Duquesne Laundry Co. plant in Lawrenceville on the afternoon of Sept. 19, they ran to the site to help save lives. As smoke filled the building, gallant men stood awaiting the female workers who may have needed to leap from the upper floors. Unfortunately for them, the workers were based on just the first floor. With no chance to be heroic, the men simply helped the girls out of the windows. As it turns out, the fire was caused by an overheating stove. The plant was back to work an hour later.
Finally, the biggest story of the day was the opening of the new Ohio River Bridge connecting wealthy Sewickley and blue-collar Coraopolis. The bridge was long anticipated, with planning beginning way back in 1904. When the first dirt was turned for construction in July 1909, more than 3,000 people gathered to watch. People didn’t just want a bridge, they felt that their communities needed one to remain competitive for jobs and commerce. So, when the bridge opened, it was dedicated with a parade and a full-day of parties and celebrations.
Despite being separated by just a river, Sewickley and Coraopolis could not have been more different. This week, we will take a look at the some of the stories that defined Sewickley during the first century following its 1853 incorporation.
• Like other Ohio River communities, Sewickley had to do its part to ensure safety along the waterway. In 1870, there were more than 600 oil-burning lamps stationed along the river between Pittsburgh and the Mississippi River. These lights led the way for rivermen from dusk to dawn and in times of heavy fog. Every three months, the riverboat Lilly came down from the city to deliver a new supply of oil for each lamp.
Each river light was operated by an assigned light tender, who was paid a stipend each month for their efforts in keeping the lamp burning. In Sewickley, the job was given to George Gibb Sr., a father of nine sons and one daughter who lived at Edgeworth. The Gibb family operated their lamp for a staggering 50 years, between 1878 and 1928.
During the 19th century, the oil lamps would sometimes be the only lights visible by rivermen during the nighttime hours. Once widespread electricity use began during the 1900s, the lamps became superfluous, as entire towns were lit up along both shores. The final river lights were phased out during the early 1930s.
• In the days before the railroad, the two major routes of transportation were the Ohio River and the Beaver Road. The latter was a major route for transporting goods and people, including multiple stagecoach routes. The Beaver Road was the primary roadway between Pittsburgh and the West, running parallel to the river. It was because of this important thoroughfare that Sewickley saw its establishment.
The earliest landowners in what would become Sewickley were Henry Ulery and Thomas Beer. By 1805, both men had developed their land by building houses and farm structures. Beer even operated a tavern from his home, one of many along the Beaver Road that served the rough-and-tumble rivermen and weary travelers. By the 1820s, both Beer and Ulery had carved up their land holdings and sold off lots to settlers who were looking to establish themselves on the edge of America.
The Beaver Road was crowded, at least by early 19th century standards. By 1810, there were hundreds of overstuffed wagons transporting goods from the ports of Philadelphia and Baltimore toward new settlements out west. Lumber, stone, domestic utensils like pots and pans, liquor, axes, salt, furs, and pelts were all worth their weight in gold to the folks carving out a life in the wilderness. Large herds of cattle, horses, oxen, hogs and sheep also could be seen meandering along the Beaver Road daily.
All of this traffic created a need for businesses to service the travelers. Besides Beer’s tavern, several inns popped up in the vicinity of Little Sewickley Creek. Livery stables and blacksmiths were also in demand to repair broken-down wagons and trade horses. Meanwhile, the river swelled with keelboats, flatboats and the occasional raft filled with fish or driftwood. As new log houses began to pop up along the riverfront, the makings of a village came together.
Despite being only a few hundred years apart, the clientele of the river and the road were vastly different. Rivermen tended to be drunkards, disorderly and quick on the draw. The inns that served these men were very utilitarian in nature, with no frills or luxury accommodations required. It wasn’t rare to see shootouts, duels or straight-up fist fights taking place along the banks of the Ohio. Meanwhile, the Beaver Road businesses served the stagecoach routes and farmers who were moving their goods to and from Pittsburgh. These establishments were usually built with aesthetics in mind.
The combination of river and road quickly built up the village. By 1850, Sewickley had more than 30 homes, several churches, a primary school and an academy. The village was mostly made up of German, Scottish and English descendants who attended Methodist or Presbyterian services. In 1853, 82 men signed a petition to form the new borough of Sewickley. This official incorporation was a mere formality — Sewickley was already a booming community.
• Between 1840 and 1850, Pittsburgh’s population had exploded to the tune of a 120 percent increase. More than 46,000 people were now calling the city home, mostly clustered into the downtown section and hemmed in by the Allegheny River, Monongahela River and Grant’s Hill. Surrounded by billowing steel mills operating 24/7, the people of the city lived in a constant smog that made life unbearable.
In April 1845, the “great fire” ripped through Pittsburgh and destroyed more than 1,00 buildings. This fire, combined with the unlivable pollution, began pushing people outside of the city limits. Sewickley was a natural landing spot due to its rustic nature and a quickly developing upscale residential boom. All that was missing was a reliable form of transportation, but that would soon arrive.
The middle of the 19th century brought with it the biggest change ever seen by the people of western Pennsylvania. In 1848, the Ohio & Pennsylvania Railroad was chartered to build a new line from Allegheny City (today, Pittsburgh’s North Side) to Crestline, Ohio. Crestline was basically nowhere, a slab of blank land that just happened to be the midpoint between two major stations on the Cleveland, Columbus & Cincinnati Railroad. The new line would intersect with this one, creating a network linking Pittsburgh with all points due west.
The only natural route for the Ohio & Pennsylvania Railroad was to follow the Beaver Road, bringing the tracks directly through Sewickley. Previously, it would take upwards of four hours to reach Pittsburgh. The railroad cut that time down to less than 30 minutes. Pittsburghers began to flock to the suburbs to escape the urban “hell with its lid off.”
Most of the old time Sewickley sect did not welcome the railroad with open arms. They felt it would bring the same pollution that was destroying Pittsburgh, render farmland useless and drive a blue-collar element into their utopian setting. For a while it looked as if the railroad wouldn’t be built due to these holdouts, as they owned much of the land required for the right-of-way. Once the Harmony Society signed on, however, there was no stopping progress. The Harmonists basically controlled the will of the people and their opinion was held in such high regard that few would stand against them.
In July 1851, the first section of the new O&P opened between Allegheny City and New Brighton. Unfortunately, the railroad fell behind on building their passenger cars. For the initial voyage on July 30, 1851, open-air flat cars were outfitted with planks to seat passengers. A full train of VIPs were loaded onto these cars in their Sunday best attire for the nearly three-hour trip to New Brighton.
As the train left the station in Allegheny City, the engine began puffing out black smoke from the pitch pine it burned. The black smoke carried in the wind, directly into the faces of the passengers. With their eyes burning and soot covering their expensive clothing, many tried to shield themselves with umbrellas. Unfortunately, the umbrellas were made of cloth, which caught fire from the sparks in the air. What resulted must have looked like something out of a Charlie Chaplin comedy.
When the train reached Haysville, just a few miles from Sewickley Station, the passengers were able to disembark and clean up. After a few drinks at the local saloon, they had forgotten all about the trials and tribulations of the ride. When the train finally passed Sewickley, hundreds of people stood alongside the tracks to watch the new “iron horse” chug its way up the river valley.
Train service would improve over the years, and by 1910, there were 49 trains running between Sewickley and Pittsburgh daily. Commuter trains ran every 20 minutes, allowing for swift travel. By the 1920s, the Sewickley area had become the preferred place to live for Pittsburgh’s wealthy industrialists.
• Sewickley’s fear of becoming just another mill town also drove objections to streetcar service. As Pittsburgh and Beaver County were developing extensive streetcar networks during the 1890s, Sewickley was the lone holdout.
One issue with streetcar companies was their private nature. Unlike public transportation of the late 20th century, these companies were usually owned by wealthy conglomerates of businessmen. The combined wealth of these firms allowed them to gobble up land and develop entire towns in the manner they desired. Streetcar suburbs were designed for quantity over quality, with smaller lots and homes built to maximize the number of people residing there.
Sewickley, however, prided itself on being a community where individual landowners each developed their own corner of the town, allowing them to keep large properties with well-manicured lawns and even pastures. Sewickley residents saw keeping out streetcar companies as a matter of self-preservation. If it also kept out lower-class workers and industry, that was fine by them.
In 1895, two separate companies began planning streetcar lines for Sewickley. Borough council quickly sprung into action to debate the subject, eventually passing an ordinance banning streetcars in 1897. Even still, the issue would not die.
In 1903, as the Beaver Valley Traction Co. expanded to Leetsdale, streetcars again began closing in on the Sewickley borough limits. The Pittsburgh Railways Co. was also on the move, extending its line to Emsworth. Both were owned by the same parent company, making a connection seem inevitable. Linking them would create a nonstop streetcar line from New Castle to Pittsburgh.
Once again, streetcars were in the news in Sewickley. Over the span of three months, the issue was debated feverishly in the pages of the new Sewickley Herald newspaper, as well as in grocery stores, the post office and even at the dinner table. Finally, in June 1904, council voted once again to keep streetcars out of their town.
Several years later, streetcar tracks were installed on the new Sewickley-Coraopolis Bridge. These tracks belonged to the Pittsburgh, Neville Island, & Coraopolis Street Railway Co., a well-established line on the far side of the Ohio River. In 1913, Sewickley council permitted the company to build a turn around on the Sewickley side of the bridge, which would be as close as the town would ever get to having streetcar service.
Jeffrey Snedden writes a weekly history column for GateHouse Media sister paper The Beaver County Times.