Smock is a quiet Fayette County village situated in a rural valley one mile west of Route 51, eight miles north of Uniontown. The former coal community, which is listed on the National Register of Historic Places, has a rich past. Unlike some other coal patches in southwestern Pennsylvania, Smock also has a bright future, its residents insist.
The village was named after farmer Samuel Smock, who in the late 1800s agreed to grant the Monongahela Division of the Pennsylvania Railroad a right of way if the company would name its train station after him.
Smock is different from other coal patches — mining communities developed in a plan, often in a grid — in that it was built by a number of different coal companies at different times in its history rather than by a single entity. The village features at least five different sections with distinct styles of architecture.
Today, Smock is divided into three parts, falling in three municipalities. The majority of the village lies in Franklin Township, with the section on the southern side of Redstone Creek, known as Smock Hill, in Menallen Township. While some of Smock also runs into Redstone Township, there are no surviving homes in this area.
George Bozek, a Franklin Township supervisor and Smock resident, estimates there are about 600 residents in the lower section of Smock. Joseph Petrucci, a Menallen Township supervisor, said there are 55 dwellings and about 130 residents on Smock Hill, a neighborhood that included the homes of the mining superintendent and other company managers.
But defining where an unincorporated village such as Smock begins and ends is difficult. "The trick is the borderline," said Bozek. While the village itself is small, the area identified with Smock spreads out. Village postmaster Chuck Martin reported that there are 675 homes in the Smock rural delivery area in addition to the 200 boxes at the post office.
Rows of company houses built between the late 1800s and 1923 remain in Smock, but many have changed in appearance. The former tenant miners bought and remodeled the simple, but surprisingly well-built homes, often converting duplexes into single units.
While some southwestern Pennsylvania's coal patches exhibit an unmistakable decline, Smock is still in good shape. The reason, resident after resident said, is the pride that homeowners take in their homes, particularly on the "front row" along Route 4016.
There is also renewed pride among residents.
Smock native Nadine Sethman, 48, said that there was a stigma attached to coming from a patch when she attended Uniontown Area High School in the 1970s. "You were one of the kids not in the in crowd," Sethman said. Now a registered nurse at Jefferson Regional Medical Center in Pittsburgh's South Hills, she said her colleagues used to tease her about "where the heck is Smock," until they drove over to the village one weekend and discovered for themselves how attractive it is.
Sethman, always thought she would leave Smock, like her four older siblings did, but she found her roots were too deep there. She talks of her late father, Roman Chaikcic, who was born in the village of nowa Shunz, Poland, north of Warsaw, and "came through Ellis Island," to America, only to lose his brother and his mother in the influenza epidemic of 1918. Sethman said her father was tough, noting that he mined and loaded tons of coal each day by hand to provide for his family.
It is a story heard often in Smock. Rita Kantorik, 71, said her late father, George Suich, started in the mines at age 13. She contends he and the late Steve Billy were two of the strongest miners in Smock.
SMOCK OF OLD
It was an interest in her heritage that led Sethman to join with Patty Myers, Katie Tuckish, Katherine Karchnak, Josephine Kobachko, Aggie Petrus, Mary Spooner, Anne Helisek, Bernadine Link and a number of other residents to form the Smock Historical Society in 1994 and to establish a museum on the second floor of the former Union Supply Co. store. Myers, the president of the historical society, noted that "women power" played a major role in the initial push.
Myers, 58, had moved to the village in 1965 after she married her husband, Edward, a Smock native. Having grown up in a country setting, she said she felt out of place in Smock at first, particularly since most of her neighbors were elderly. Then she got to know them and began listening to their stories. "I found (the stories) were wonderful about Smock in the old days," she said.
The village was at the center of the Lower Connellsville Coke region that provided the finest coking coal in the world. In addition to the nearby mines, in its early years Smock had a companion bank of 500 beehive ovens where coal was baked into coke for use in making steel. A wonder of the coal era, the 5.4-mile Colonial Conveyor that transported coal from several mines to the Monongahela River, to a dock near Fayette City, also ran under Smock.
The early J.D. Boyd Coal Co., Warner and Co. and the Buffalo Coal Co., all had a hand in developing coal mines and in building Smock before the Pittsburgh Coal Co., and then the H.C. Frick Coke Co., an affiliate of U.S. Steel, took charge.
Smock's hometown mine, Colonial No. 1, closed in 1943., before most of the mechanization that made mines safer and miners' work a little easier. The tipple and most of the other mine structures came down years ago. An elaborate bathhouse underwent a major reworking when it was taken over by the Franklin Township Rod and Gun Club, with the shower heads and hanging baskets for miners' clothes, replaced by the freezers and ovens of the club's kitchen. There are a few other mine buildings still standing, scattered around the property. Franklin Township took over the mine's water filtration plant, and it now supplies water to Grindstone and Rowes Run, as well as Smock.
Frick never reopened the Colonial No. 2 mine after purchasing the Pittsburgh Coal Co properties in 1911. No trace of the mine, located on Smock Hill, survives today.
Ruins of the beehive ovens that closed in 1924 can still be seen, but most of the bank has blended into the countryside. Even the mine's waste coal gob piles have been whittled down and covered over in recent years.
The best vantage point from which to view what Smock looked like in its heyday is in the museum on the second floor of the old company store. Former resident Mary Ann Hovanic painted a 6 1/2-foot-by-12-foot mural of the village, based on a 1920s-era photograph taken from Goat Hill.
While the photograph is black and white, the mural is in color, down to the alternating red and green company houses –– a common color scheme for Frick patches. Hovanic said she drew on the advice of her parents, Arthur and Mary Zuzak, and her father-in-law, John Hovanic, to get the colors right.
Hovanic also painted on a separate wall a depiction of what the Union Supply Co. store looked like before it closed, including Christmas toys in its picture window and the yellow-brick road the led to it.
The murals are only two of the many exhibits in the museum that mine Smock's heritage. The historical society has re-created whole rooms including the kitchen, bedroom and front room of a patch home with period furnishings and other trappings, to tell the story of the Slovak, Polish, Italian and other immigrants who came to Smock to mine coal and make coke.
While Smock is now a peaceful bedroom community with a large proportion of retirees and little crime, one display in the room that re-creates Ciccioni's Tavern, also known to residents as the Union Tavern, shows evidence of a more violent past. A framed 1930s-era photograph of President Franklin D. Roosevelt includes a bullet hole in its lower right corner. The bullet evidently came from a "yellowdog" (company policeman) who fired into the bar during a union meeting. "We like to say we had the first drive-by shooting," Sethman quipped.
The Smock facility has developed into one of the finest town museums around featuring the coal mining era with little outside financial support. It is open to the public on Saturdays in a season that runs from June 1 through Oct. 31.
A BEDROOM COMMUNITY
Smock had a bustling private business district that grew up alongside the company store, which was also unusual for a southwestern Pennsylvania coal community. At one time Smock had several grocery stores, taverns, a barbershop, a shoemaker, a gunsmith shop, a train station with passenger service — even a hotel in its early days. "It was just like a city," said Joe Pochinsky, 76, a Smock native who moved to Monarch in 1950.
The village may have been one of the smallest communities around to support its own Plymouth/Dodge dealership. Lifelong Smock resident Chuck Sparrow said his late uncle, Edgar Sparrow, sold his last car around 1957, but kept his garage open into the 1980s.
Smock doesn't have a single grocery store today, although residents joked that one can get a soda pop from machines either at the car wash or the fire hall. People seem resigned to a drive of a few miles for a loaf of bread; it's the price they pay for Smock's rural charms.
The only business other than the car wash in town is the Rittenhouse Transportation Co. that buses children to school. Younger children in the lower part of the village attend Franklin Elementary, those on Smock Hill attend Menallen Elementary, both in the Uniontown Area School District. They are reunited at Uniontown Area High School when they reach the higher grades.
The daily gathering place for Smock is now the post office, located on the first floor of the old Union Supply building, the same structure that houses the museum. Martin said residents come in the morning to check their mailboxes and to talk about the day's events. "It's interesting in morning," the postmaster acknowledged.
A community center, also on the first floor of the Union Supply building, is available for more formal gatherings, such as club meetings and wedding receptions. Bozek noted that his wedding was held there 23 years ago, and he said he wishes more village residents would take advantage of the community resource.
In addition, the Smock Volunteer Fire Department has a modern social hall, where Wednesday night bingo is played by "devout fans" from all over Fayette County, according to Flo Shenal, president of the ladies auxiliary. Shenal also pointed out that there's a "grocery bingo" each month, which awards food as well as cash to the winners.
With the high percentage of retired residents it may not seem like it, but there are younger people living in Smock too. Myers said Smock is a good place for a young couple to buy a starter home, one of the reasons why her son, Doug, settled in the community. Sethman pointed out that the sons and daughters of Smock residents buy available houses as soon as they come on the market. Smock has also attracted a number of new residents from the Pittsburgh area who want a more rural lifestyle.
Shenal's son-in-law, Tim Kelly, the volunteer fire department chief, said he has noticed more younger families moving into the village the last few years. Although he was born in Baltimore, Md., he has a number of relatives in Smock, including his mother, Sandra Bailey. On the job, he makes deliveries to Pittsburgh, job and customers sometimes ask him "how are the cows doing?" He said he has no desire to live in a city, noting that, "It's too noisy." Kelly and his wife, Maria, have three children, Shannon, 9, Maura, 12, and Neil, 16. Neil acknowledged that Smock isn't an exciting place for a teen. "It's real small, but I manage," he said.
Smock does have baseball fields, and Neil Kelly took up the game here. Following in the footsteps of a great-uncle who played for the Edenborn patch in the Frick League, he's a member of a wining Uniontown High Red Raiders team.
There are two baseball fields located behind the fire hall. One is on the spot that once included an elaborate grandstand where the Smock team played championship seasons in the Frick League.
St. Hedwig Roman Catholic Church located on Smock Hill has been a central part of village life since it was built in 1920 to serve the Eastern European immigrants who came to work at Colonial No. 1. The membership of the church is smaller now, but the Rev. John Sedlak, who is pastor at both St. Hedwig and its partner parish, St. Cecilia Roman Catholic Church in Grindstone, said, "Our numbers are holding," and noted that there is "a sprinkling of younger people," among the Smock congregation.
First Baptist Church of Smock was founded in 1923 by blacks who were initially brought to southwestern Pennsylvania as strike-breakers by Frick, but who became stalwart United Mine Workers Association members and an integral part of area communities. Mildred Leake, originally from Brownsville, has been a resident of Smock and a member of the church for 50 years. Leake emphasized that the congregation isn't limited to Smock residents, but includes those who hail from nearby communities such as Royal, Rowes Run and Grindstone. Like St. Hedwig, the congregation has diminished in size but not in spirit, Leake insisted. "We find it doesn't take a lot to keep going," she said. "We're doing more with what we have."
Area residents also attend Pleasant View Presbyterian Church, located one mile from the community center on Route 4016, just outside Smock. Rita Kantorik, who said she was one of the few Protestants growing up on Smock Hill, sings in the church choir.
GREATER SMOCK
Smock is surrounded by farms, and the area's agricultural history traces back much further than the village itself. Grave markers in Redstone Cemetery in Smock date back to the late 1700s. The two-story Smock Homestead that bear's the village founder's name wasn't even built by him, but by Jonathan Sharples, who sold his 190-acre farm to Smock in 1869.
The house had been in the Sparrow family since the 1920s, and Chuck Sparrow, 66, and his wife, Phyllis, acquired it from relatives in 1974 to restore it. After 28 years, the outside is finished, but three rooms inside still need work. Asked why he took on the renovation, Sparrow explained, "It was my mother's and my dad's dream."
While the population has dipped in Smock, it has dropped precipitously on the Constantine Farm, which once housed 82,000 chickens. They laid Constantine Eggs — still a familiar brand name in area supermarkets. But Bob Constantine sold his interest in the business some time ago and said he doesn't have any chickens anymore. He still raises grain, hay, and sweet corn, as well as pumpkins, and operates a stand at the farm during the summer.
When he isn't toiling in his fields, Constantine is cleaning up the streets of Smock. He's been picking up the litter along five miles of asphalt, including the Constantine Road that leads to his farm and Route 4016, the main drag through Smock, for 13 years. "I do it for my exercise," Constantine, 78, said.
Constantine points out that he isn't a native of Smock, but of Royal which was a real rival when he was younger. Evelyn Constantine said she met her husband there when he stopped by with his father to sell plants at her father's greenhouse.
Evelyn Constantine is a charter member of the Smock Historical Society, and she pointed out a display of old Constantine Egg advertising signs are in the museum. "Aren't they nice in the corner?" she asked.
Like the other society members, she has embraced Smock's history. "I like to reminisce," she said. Bob Constantine has also been a community leader, including a stint as a former member of the Uniontown Area Board of Education.
Although there are a number of other farms, including the one worked by David Rittenhouse and his father James Rittenhouse Jr., one of the most unusual spreads in rural Smock serves as a sanctuary for lions and tigers and other big cats. Veterinarian William Sheperd established the sanctuary at his farm to care for wild animals who had been acquired by thoughtless people as pets then abused and/or abandoned.
COMING HOME TO SMOCK
Every two years a community reunion in Smock draws scores of former residents home, and the big biennial bash falls this year on the weekend of July 27-28. The reunion is a major undertaking for the committee, made up of Mary Vargulich Kyper, Ann Chrisar Spiranic, Francis "Lefty" and Rosalie Peskie Tomko, Alice and George Vargulich and Eleanor Vrabec.
People have come from as far away as Australia to attend. In addition to former residents renewing old acquaintances, their children and grandchildren come to learn more about their roots.
Rosalie Peskie Tomko said that about 400 Smock residents and visitors from all over attended the first reunion 22 years ago. Due to the aging of former residents, that number has decreased to about 200 participants at more recent reunions. At the 2000 reunion, the Smocks (descendants of the village's namesake) returned to Smock for the first time.
Plans for the 12th annual reunion include dinner and dancing at the Smock fire hall July 27, and a less formal gathering July 28 "for relaxing and reminiscing," according to a letter sent to former Smock residents. The committee is also asking former residents to spread the word to those who may not have received the announcement.
Former Smock residents who live in southwestern Pennsylvania make more frequent trips home, including Pochinsky, who still has a sister and friends who live in the village. "I go to the cemetery to talk to my buddies," he also said.
SMOCK'S FUTURE
Smock residents believe in its future. "It's not a retirement community; it's a community that's functional," said Roger Rittenhouse, the owner of the bus line. He believes so much in Smock that he plans to build a new garage on 10 acres of land reclaimed from a former gob pile. Rittenhouse hopes it will be the beginning of more business in town.
A key to growth may be a $2.8 million sewerage project now under way. Bozek said the Franklin/Fayette Sewage Authority would soon hook up the entire village. Smock, like many other coal patches, has what is known as a wildcat sewerage system, a piping network built by Frick that directs sewage to Redstone Creek without treatment. In addition to the need to stop pollution in the stream, the new system is mandated because the piping in Smock is getting old and needs replaced.
The new sewerage system will replace the whole piping network as well as add a treatment plant, according to Bozek. Petrucci said the community will look "even nicer" when the sewerage lines are in. He said the project would have the added benefit of improving paving in the village.
Bozek emphasized that an adequate sewerage system is not only an important factor for future growth in Smock, but in Fayette County as a whole. "The basic bottom line is growth will come once the sewerage (system) is built," he said.
The new sewerage system will be the second major infrastructure improvement in recent years. Franklin Township installed a new waterline for the village in 1996.
Bozek said Franklin and Menallen are similar townships that include a number of former coal communities. He and Petrucci agreed that the two municipalities have worked well together on Smock's behalf.
The one major disagreement on community services concerns fire protection. Smock volunteer firefighters question the practice of 911 dispatching the New Salem Volunteer Fire Department to emergencies on Smock Hill in Menallen Township, before their department, located at the bottom of the hill in Franklin Township, is dispatched.
Organized in 1947, the Smock Volunteer Fire Department has two pumpers and a tank truck as well as a rescue vehicle. Police protection for Smock is provided through the Pennsylvania State Police in Uniontown.
While all agree that the hustle and bustle is a thing of the past in Smock, what has remained and even strengthened in recent years is the sense of community. Chuck Sparrow said he wouldn't think of living anywhere else. "I'm content here," Myers agreed.
As new generations inherit and continue to care for their forbears' homes and new residents move to Smock, Myers and the other members of the Smock Historical Society are working to keep the Smock of old alive in people's memories. The newest room under development at the museum is Spooner's Barbershop, complete with the original barber's chair. The historical society also hopes to restore one of Smock's beehive coke ovens.
Another historic monument not connected with the museum is located adjacent to it. Like numerous other communities in southwestern Pennsylvania, the residents of Smock erected a World War II honor roll to honor the veterans who served their nation.
