McKeesport's Eden Park once was a popular place for a picnic, nestled in the Third Precinct of Versailles Township.

The area gave its name to a borough that existed for less than eight years — from 1944 to 1952 — and covered 800 acres with a population of 1,330.

By comparison, McKeesport then topped 50,000.

Eden Park still has value as McKeesport's Twelfth Ward, home to the city's largest commercial district. When it was incorporated in 1944, its valuation was $2.5 million because of food processors and heavier industry.

“A borough government is cheaper to run than a second-class township government,” said state Rep. Thomas J. Heatherington (1903-60), who would become Eden Park's first and only burgess or mayor, as well as justice of the peace. “You can set up everything that a city has.”

“The township fought (Eden Park becoming a borough) because of the industry,” said D. James Heatherington, 78, son of Eden Park's founding father. “What industry the township had there was on Walnut Street.”

D. James Heatherington recently recalled some of that industry, including Reliance Steel Products, Hubbard Coal, Columbiana Foundry, Penn Transit, the Menzie Dairy garage, Potter-McCune and G.C. Murphy Co. warehouse.

Columbiana Foundry didn't survive the 1940s. Penn Transit operated into the 1960s.

The Hubbard Coal mine produced 2,300 tons a day until 1960. A strip mall is partially constructed at that site today.

Menzie Dairy survived until 1976. Potter-McCune and its successor companies, including Amerimark, had operations until 1982 at 3200 Walnut St.

Now Book Country is there, touting itself as “the largest bargain book wholesaler in the United States” with 8 million volumes within its 500,000 square feet.

Reliance Steel operated at the location of the modern-day Rite Aid, another anchor of today's Christy Park-Eden Park business district, one McKeesport Mayor Michael Cherepko calls “the focus of many of our redevelopment efforts.”

The tax revenue from such property was vital to a municipality, D. James Heatherington said, because “there was no federal money poured into everything.”

In a 1946 article in The Daily News, Thomas J. Heatherington said had Eden Park not become a borough, “we would have gone with McKeesport,” a city that would flourish well into the 1960s and 1970s.

Eden Park became part of McKeesport in 1952, but not before a turbulent period during which the surviving Versailles Township precincts became the borough of White Oak.

First, Versailles Township challenged Eden Park's incorporation, winning a decision in Allegheny County but losing in state Supreme Court.

“They ruled that the people had a right to say how they wanted to be governed,” D. James Heatherington said. “And the people in that area wanted a borough.”

Versailles was one of the first seven townships in Allegheny County, dating back to the county's incorporation in 1788. By 1944 it was down to three precincts, one covering the Bryn Mawr area, one surrounding Rainbow Gardens and a third around Summit Street and Fawcett Avenue.

Bryn Mawr (First Precinct) and the Summit-Fawcett area (Fourth Precinct) were targeted for annexation by the city, while Eden Park moved to annex about half of the Second Precinct, an area stretching along Lincoln Way to the Westmoreland County line and including Long Run Road. The targeted area had 350 residents and was valued at $1 million, according to records at the McKeesport Regional History & Heritage Center.

After it filed to annex the area in August 1946, Eden Park police patrolled it as they did the borough's two wards, Eden Park and Hall Park, but Allegheny County Quarter Sessions Judge Sara M. Soffel set the annexation aside on Dec. 4, 1946.

Two vehicles figure in the brief history of Eden Park. One was a truck with a snowplow Eden Park claimed in lieu of a debt Versailles Township owed the borough.

“Versailles Township wanted to plow their streets,” D. James Heatherington said. “They called the borough wanting to rent the truck. My dad said he'd loan them the truck. The only stipulation was that they had to clear the streets in Eden Park borough, too.”

The other was a police car.

“He bought a new police car so the Twelfth Ward would have a police car,” D. James Heatherington said. “It had the first radio in a car based out of McKeesport that served outside the city.”

The city and Eden Park fought the incorporation of White Oak, but an Allegheny County judge signed off on incorporation on June 24, 1948.

“The only way to keep McKeesport and Eden Park from taking fat slices of Versailles (Township) was for it to become a borough,” opined The Daily News, then published by state Sen. William D. Mansfield.

The city annexed a part of Eden Park in 1948. It lay claim to 24 city-owned acres acquired in 1939 in what became Renziehausen Park.

It wasn't the only oddity about Eden Park's territory. A homeowner living near where McKeesport Area High School was later built didn't want to be part of the new borough.

“So my dad drew a line around him,” D. James Heatherington said. “He was an old Versailles Township citizen and he did not want to be part of anything new.”

D. James Heatherington said that for years afterward the property remained part of Versailles Township and later White Oak.

Eden Park was part of Versailles Township's school district, unable to get state permission to form its own district around old Greenwood School, even after the city annexed the borough.

Versailles Township lived on as a separate school district until 1966 when the state ordered the McKeesport Area School District merger.

Eden Park police Chief Patrick Miller joined the city's police force, becoming an assistant chief before his death.

Thomas J. Heatherington continued his public service as a McKeesport councilman, serving as council finance chairman when he died in 1960. His sons followed in their father's path.

Robert V. Heatherington came home from World War II to serve as Eden Park's borough secretary.

D. James Heatherington was president of McKeesport city council as well as president of the McKeesport Hospital Foundation board. He's still on the foundation board as well as a licensed funeral director.

Patrick Cloonan is a staff writer for Trib Total Media. He can be reached at 412-664-9161, ext. 1967, or pcloonan@tribweb.com.

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