'Turnpike killer' preyed on sleeping truckers, terrorizing region 50 years ago
Southwestern Pennsylvania was a frenzied scene 50 years ago when the "turnpike killer" struck as the nation watched.
Truckers feared for their lives along the superhighway, as it was then still called. Drivers traveled in convoys, equipped with guns, baseball bats, jack handles and other "weapons." They stopped and rested in groups.
National publicity caused tourists and travelers to avoid the pike. Toll booth attendants, police and many others markedly increased their vigils.
On July 25 and 28, 1953, the man who earned that dreaded name killed sleeping truck drivers in robberies along the road. Then, on July 31, he seriously wounded a trucker in still another one along Route 30.
The dramatic nature of the case involving travelers along a nationally prominent and popular interstate road attracted an abundance of national publicity.
Intensive detective work traced the killer through robbed loot that he had pawned. A collective and mighty sigh of relief came when he was arrested Oct. 12, 1953, in New Mexico.
A state trooper and an assistant district attorney and county detective from Westmoreland County went to Albuquerque and returned him by train to the Westmoreland County jail.
John Wesley Wable, 26, of Ohiopyle, was tried and convicted of the first killing of a driver parked along the pike near Donegal, a shooting that occurred as a robbery of the sleeping driver was attempted.
Wable was convicted in the Westmoreland County courts of that murder, March 13, 1954, and the death sentence pronounced in December after some appeals. Further appeal efforts that lasted well into 1955 were turned down.
On the afternoon of Sept. 26, 1955, he was taken from his cell in the Westmoreland jail and transported to Rockview penitentiary near Bellefonte, where late that evening he was executed.
ONE-MONTH MARCH
The quick campaigns of modern warfare in the Middle East are a radical change from earlier days, such as one troop movement in western Pennsylvania that took a month alone in the War of 1812.
In that war, when the federal government asked the governor of Pennsylvania to provide 1,000 men for the protection of the Lake Erie frontier, the first step was mustering the state militia volunteers. From Adams, Cumberland and Franklin counties, they were assembled at Carlisle.
When that was accomplished, they began the march to Erie in sections, March 2, 1814.
The journal of that march reflected its events. Portions of the journal for the trip from Somerset through Greensburg to Pittsburgh show the nature of that maneuver -- and how warfare troop movements are different in the modern era.
On March 12, the troops passed through Somerset on a quite cold and cloudy day. They were "halted" on a hill in the center of town, "where we stood in the mud during a cold breeze until some whiskey was served along the line as a treat by some of the citizens."
That day's march covered 14 miles, and the next day's covered 13 miles as Laurel Hill and deep snow atop it were traversed. The March 14 effort covered about the same distance as the troops reached "Hurst's" -- probably Nathaniel Hurst's in Mt. Pleasant Township.
On March 15, the entourage "marched at 8 a.m. through rain and mud" and came to Greensburg at 11 a.m. There, the troops were quartered mostly in the courthouse and private houses, "where the inhabitants of this place generally treated the men kindly. Too much cannot be said in praise of John Morrison, Esq., by whose activity the courthouse was obtained for the convenience of the men, and providing for and lodging as many as his house could contain."
The next day, these troops reached Stewart's (later Trafford), and on the 17th "came to a small village called Wilkinsburg." The next day, they reached Pittsburgh, where they camped for three days on Grant's Hill and "enjoyed" the treats of the city as it was then.
The expedition arrived at Erie on April 2, and its personnel were assigned to various duties, including points along the lake to which they went by boat. By September, the return trip to Carlisle was made by boat to New York and Philadelphia -- easier than marching, but still a rather cumbersome journey.
The duty was not of long duration, and the stops at Somerset, Greensburg and Pittsburgh were well remembered.
THIS DATE IN HISTORY
Summer days in July and August generally have produced fewer historic events than other times of the year. But some events of July 13 were quite significant.
CAN HISTORY BE WRONG?
An account in an 1889 history of "healthy" Pittsburgh may not have gained medical approval before publication. It read:
"It is not pretended that Pittsburgh is a sanitarium or health resort. It is hot in summer and cold in winter, and has all the dirty characteristics of a great manufacturing place; but still its citizens feel much pride in its reputation as a healthy place.
"The cholera, in its visits of 1832 and 1854, although severe in its visitations, was not so fatal here as in many other cities ... other epidemics such as small pox have yielded easily to municipal control and have been confined to the neighborhoods where they broke out.
"There have been local outbreaks of typhoid fever ... but a severe discipline has kept them within their original bounds ... this hill country of western Pennsylvania has always been free from diseases of malarial origin, and the sulfur in the air of a coal-consuming city has been favorable rather than unfavorable to lung diseases."
EAST LIBERTY HISTORY?
Concerned with East Liberty history⢠In southwestern Pennsylvania, there are choices.
In 1792, the village of East Liberty was laid out in Dunbar Township, Fayette County, by Joshua Dickinson. Andrew Bryson built the first house. John McBurney, of a pioneer family there, was first postmaster in 1824. The post office functioned until 1882 as East Liberty, then was transferred to the adjoining village of Alexandria.
The name of that town since has been Vanderbilt.
A June 1797 ad in the newspaper at Pittsburgh: "Town of East Liberty. The subscriber having laid out a town west of the Laurel Hill on the new state road from Bedford to Pittsburgh, in Ligonier Valley, Donegal Township, Westmoreland County, within one mile of Westmoreland furnace and forge. It is situated on a level spot of ground on each side of said road, which is 60 feet wide ...
A plan of the town may be seen at the subscriber's on the premises, who has the residue of the place to sell, on which there is a good body of iron ore. Robert Laughlin, Ligonier Valley."
That town, not surprisingly, was named Laughlintown later.
There were others as well, but one has survived. It was described in 1843 as "a handsome town five miles east of Pittsburgh on the Greensburg and Philadelphia Turnpike. It was laid out more than 20 years ago by the late Jacob Negley, Esq. It is surrounded by delightful country, over which many beautiful country seats (estates) belonging to wealthy citizens are scattered."
Needless to say, the atmosphere of that East Liberty has changed as Pittsburgh expanded to overtake it in the 160 years since the description.
MINI-VIGNETTES
Perhaps the best known of the mining village company stores of earlier years was Frick Coke and Coal's Union Supply Co., which as late as the end of World War II still operated 106 stores. The first was opened about 1875 at Broadford in northern Fayette County.
In 1903, a century ago, the Latrobe Street Railway in one day laid 200 feet of track across railroad property. That evening, 75 Pennsylvania Railroad laborers were brought in by special cars and tore it up as a large crowd watched. The trolley line thought it had permission, but in eight minutes action spoke louder than words.
One of the main reasons cited in 1802 for the need for a police force at Pittsburgh was "the indecent practice of bathing publicly in daylight."
Many years ago at Pleasant Grove church near Ligonier, the minister and a number of members of the church were putting a new roof on the structure. One of the members hit his thumb with a hammer. Because of the minister's presence, he didn't feel he could use the right words to stop the pain!
When what remained of Mifflin Township in Allegheny County was formed into the borough of West Mifflin in 1942, the "west" had to be added because there was a Mifflin borough in Juniata County to the east. That's why no "East" Mifflin.
In the early days of the then Fayette County Railroad around 1860, its pioneer passenger conductor frequently overslept. The ticket agent, Flavious B. Titlow, who had many other duties including keeping all the books and handling all the freight, was required to fill in for him.
Rodgers Field, the pioneer Pittsburgh municipal airport in1925 at Fox Chapel, was named for Calbraith P. Rodgers. In 1911, he completed the first transcontinental flight of a heavier than air craft. Rodgers was killed two months later when his plane crashed in the Pacific.
SPORTS HISTORY
Football on television is 64 years old this year, since the first experimental telecast of a game at Randall's Island stadium in New York City in September 1939. That historic event featured Fordham University hosting Waynesburg College, with a number of southwestern Pennsylvania players in action.
Among them were Bobby Brooks, a Greensburg High grad who scored the first touchdown on TV with a 63-yard run, and John Stefanik, of Greene County, who added the extra point. That 7-0 Waynesburg lead was short-lived as Fordham, then a national collegiate power, scored a 34-7 victory.
A Fordham player at that time was Steve Filipowicz. An All-American running back for the Rams, Steve served in the Marine Corps during World War II, played major league baseball with the New York Giants and Cincinnati Reds, and also pro football with the then New York Giants.
Waynesburg coach Frank Wolf was the same gentleman who started the 1944 season as head coach of the Greensburg High Golden Lions.
Brooks, a diminutive running back, was a speedster who also excelled at track. In high school, he anchored a mile relay team that set a Greensburg school record that lasted for more than 40 years. On the football team, he was the ace running back on the 1935 team, which was undefeated and untied in nine games.
Stefanik later served as an assistant coach at Greensburg High for a number of years from the 1940s until the 1960s. Filipowicz, who lived at Wilkes-Barre in later life, died in 1975.
While the game didn't attract much attention in its day, it was the start of a major element in today's television world.
