Big story of 1953: Turnpike killings by Ohiopyle man

Ten years ago, in the second half of 1991, these were some of the subjects covered in "Vignettes."

A big story in 1953 was that of the Turnpike killer, an Ohiopyle man by the name of John Wesley Wable, who killed two drivers in turnpike robberies and seriously wounded another. He was executed in September 1955 in a case that attracted a lot of attention.

Mt. Odin Park and golf course at Greensburg, named for the original estate there, had more than 2,000 varieties of vines, trees and shrubbery.

Vandergrift's founder was a self-educated Irishman who came from Chicago to Pittsburgh to work for Jones & Laughlin Steel after the Civil War and became president of Apollo Iron & Steel. He was George G. McMurtry.

John Schell in 1808 laid out the town of Shellsburg in western Bedford County. A merchant, he first gave the Reformed and Lutheran congregations 6 acres for church and school purposes.

The landmark Jumonville Cross near Uniontown was the scene of a tragic 1957 plane crash when the Standard Oil corporate plane crashed in a heavy fog and killed six.

The original owner of the Albert Gallatin Friendship Hill land was Nicholas Blake, from whom Gallatin purchased the Fayette County site in 1788.

A Mt. Pleasant native, Clayton K. Rogers, achieved some notoriety in the Civil War by being the arresting officer for Brig. Gen. Thomas Rowley on charges of intoxication. However, the general's guilt was set aside by the secretary of war. Rogers lived out his life in Wisconsin until his death in 1900.

When a New Alexandria bank clerk was in an auto crash in 1951, she suffered a broken arm and was unable to work, at which time a shortage was found. That experience caused many banks to mandate vacations so that another person at some time was involved in various operations.

Law enforcement at Youngstown in Westmoreland suffered quite a setback in August 1948. The borough's burgess-policeman-constable and its justice of the peace were killed by a man they were trying to arrest. The killer met his end later in a gun battle with state police. The two men also were the top officers of the fire department.

Maj. Gen. Charles Menoher, when he was head of the Army's new air force in 1921, warned that the military force at Pearl Harbor would be defenseless in the event of a well-directed aerial attack. Twenty years later, that prophecy by the Ligonier Valley man for whom the highway is named came true.

In 1924, the Norwin High School football team stayed several days at Mountain View Inn on Route 30 just before its big game with Jeannette to avoid crowds at its regular practices. The importance of the game, won by Norwin, was later diminished when undefeated Norwin and once-beaten Jeannette were both declared to have ineligible players.

The first game bagged at the Rolling Rock club at Laughlintown was a pheasant brought down by Richard K. Mellon in 1916.

When the Monessen High School football team was on the road in 1924, the trip was made in a huge white autobus called ''Miss Monessen.''

Speeding was a concern well before the days of the automobile at Indiana. A local newspaper noted in 1880 that ''our streets are just not exactly intended for trials of speed in horse flesh.''

Youghiogheny River swimming at Connellsville in 1925 attracted people from all over southwestern Pennsylvania to the ''swimming resorts'' there, especially a two-mile section from an old mill race pool on the west side of town to a point beyond a water pumping station at South Connellsville.

In 1900, Charleroi had 185 telephones, most in the area. Brownsville had 169, Monongahela 156, Belle Vernon 130, and Monessen 117.

In July 1925, players from the Johnstown and Scottdale teams were arrested by the sheriff of Somerset County for playing a game on Sunday at a park south of Johnstown. Arrests had previously been made at the park on several occasions. Both were pro minor league teams in the Mid-Atlantic League.

A fall event in 1931 was groundbreaking for the reconstruction of Fort Necessity near Uniontown. The fort dates back to Lt. Col. George Washington's defeat by the French there.

Only 7,455 saw the deciding game of the first World Series in 1903 at Pittsburgh, when the Pirates lost the event to the Boston Red Sox.

A man who had much to do with coal mining development in Indiana and Cambria counties was Warren Delano III (1852-1920), an uncle of later president, Franklin Delano Roosevelt.

When Franklin Regional High School (Murrysville) defeated Richland in 1964 football, halfback Bob Moose scored four touchdowns on runs of 46, 20, 16 and 35 yards. Moose's greatest fame came as a major league baseball pitcher, however.

When Capt. John Snowdon commenced work as a journeyman blacksmith at Brownsville in 1818, after coming from England, he was paid $1 a day. He was the first man at Brownsville to receive such large wages for blacksmith work.

The first county commissioners in Jefferson County were Andrew Barnett, John Lucas and J.W. Jenks, elected in 1824. Barnett was the son of the first county settler, Joseph Barnett, and in the 1840s moved to Grant County, Wis., where he became a hotelkeeper and business leader.

In 1922, two state policemen entered a Greensburg store. Rather than Christmas shopping, however, they confiscated a quantity of moonshine and arrested the proprietor.

Henry Vanmeter, a Greene County pioneer, in the 1770s had a land grant of ''465 shillings and rent of one ear of Indian corn to be paid on Christmas Day.''

The years of 1890, 1906 and 1928 had unusual Januarys - little or no snow. There was only a trace for the entire month in 1890, less than an inch in 1906 and only 1.2 inches in 1928. However, March and April in 1928 evened things up.

CONNELL LARGE LANDOWNER

Zachariah Connell, a Connellsville pioneer for whom the town is named, with his two sons once owned 2,750 acres of land there.

Many of his children moved to Ohio after his death, which accounts for the lesser number of Connells in the area.

A Connellsville newspaperman, James F. Wolfe Jr., discovered Connell's grave overgrown in the late 1940s and brought it to prominence for the town founder.

ENVIRONMENTAL CHANGES

Environmental regulations have stiffened considerably since 1953 when 12,000 gallons of gasoline flooded an area of Mt. Pleasant.

Considered a fire hazard rather than an environmental disaster, the gasoline from two outdoor storage tanks hit by a runaway truck in the Smithfield Street locale flooded by area there.

Firemen from several communities washed the gasoline into Shupes Run, which flowed into Jacobs Creek.

Fires were extinguished near the streams as a precaution, and residents along them were warned and kept away.

POST-CHRISTMAS FIRE

The day after Christmas of 1940 is remembered by the town of New Florence for a fire that destroyed the junior-senior high school in the northeastern Westmoreland community.

Only the brick walls of the 1922 structure survived. The high school had eight teachers of 175 students.

Flames leaped 100 feet in the air and attracted a huge crowd of spectators as firemen and equipment from seven other towns joined the local department in fighting the blaze.

Supplies for the entire school for the year, band instruments, athletic equipment and a 5,000-book library were among the losses in the evening fire.

PITTSBURGH HOSPITAL FOUNDINGS

It has been more than 150 years since the first two Pittsburgh hospitals were founded.

The Sisters of Mercy opened the first, Jan. 1, 1847, and called it Mercy.

Then, in January 1850, Passavant Hospital received its charter. The hospital was started in 1849 under the name Pittsburgh Infirmary by the Rev. William Passavant of Zelienople.

However, the boom in mining and industry created a need for emergency facilities to treat workers. Pittsburgh was too far for emergency cases in those days when train transport was required.

The first such hospital for those workers was Cottage State (later renamed Connellsville State), which opened Feb. 1, 1891. It cost $13,400 to build and could accommodate 38 patients.

THIS DATE IN HISTORY

Dec. 16 is another of those days that sneak in occasionally without many events having taken place on that date.

It was a big day in Allegheny County 213 years ago, though, when the first courts convened at Pittsburgh in 1788.

Irwin Electric Light Company was incorporated in 1886, the third such company in Westmoreland County.

A business block at the community of Pleasant Unity in Westmoreland was destroyed by fire in 1917.

In 1965, a bill in the state Legislature changed Indiana State Teachers College to Indiana University of Pennsylvania.

SPORTS HISTORY

St. Vincent College's football team 65 years ago in December 1936 received some publicity and recognition in a national champion situation. The Literary Digest, a leading national magazine that shortly failed because of poor political forecasting, was among those publications nationally that pointed out the St. Vincent role.

Pitt nosed out Minnesota for top national honors that year, but what made the unusual news was that: