Grand Opening - West End Playground

Spent the afternoon at the Grand Opening of the newly refurbished West End Playground at the corner of Brush Avenue and Duwell Street - formerly the site of Oakhurst School. The event was hosted by the City of Johnstown and Project Streetkids International.

There was a lot of neat stuff to keep the kids interested - using the hands on approach.

RJ started off at the bead bracelet booth.

Here you have the booth where the kids get to paint their own planter and rock.

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As you can see - the playground is just beautiful - they sure didn't have nice playgrounds like this when I was a kid.

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When the flower pot dried - the kids then had their choose of what flower they wanted to plant.

Here is the Girl Scout booth,

RJ made an American flag here.

Here we have the West End Improvement Group booth and their toilet paper toss game.

A little sweet tooth reward is the prize here.

 Waiting in line for a temporary tattoo.

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The Learning Lamp booth.

They had music and entertainment all day long which included: Painted by Millions, Kulani Dancers, HT High Flyers Jump Rope, Miller Karate and Cooking Demonstrations by Matteo's Herbs Galore. This even was so great - that I hope they make it an annual thing!

1890's Horse Drawn Fire Wagon

A rare look at one of the old horse drawn fire wagons that was high tech for the 1890's. I have no idea which Johnstown neighborhood this is.

 I enlarged it to see if I could tell which company this might be - but you can't tell. But now you can see that on the right hand side behind the wagon is a guy standing next to the call box on the pole. When I was searching the internet to see around what year this wagon was from - I ran across this - CLICK HERE from a site on stuff from Disneyland and as you will see - the wagon matches up with the 1890's.

 

Wm. Rohde & Co.

Drink Cambria Pure Rye Whiskey - Wm. Rohde & Co. - 231 Bedford St., Johnstown, Pa.

Haws Refactory - 1950's

Haws Refactory - 1950's

Slice of Life

Downtown Johnstown - 1950's 

 

Victor Car Dealer

 

Victor Cadillac-Pontiac - Southmont Blvd
 

Hanover Shoes

 

Hanover Shoes - Main Street

Pfuhl for Council

 

Pull for Pfuhl - he'll pull for you

Playground Time - 1950's

Dibert Street Playground

Where is it?

 

I keep looking at this picture and should know where it is at - but I can't figure it out. The brown house on the left hand side with a diamond shaped window really looks familiar...but just because the trolley says Morrellville - it could be anywhere in the city. Oh and I also zoomed in on the street sign - but it appears to be printed only on one side or it is worn off.

Pennsylvania Locomotive - Horseshoe Curve

This coal powered locomotive is traveling the tracks of the Horseshoe Curve in Blair County.

1943 Bus Schedule

Hutchison-Standing Bus Line - Johnstown to Bolivar - 1943 Schedule

Mulvehill Beer Distributing - Cambria City

Mulvehill Beer Distributing - 707 Broad Street - Cambria City - Ballentine Beer and Ale - Goenner - Iron City - Tech - Fort Pitt - Duquesne

West End Couple - Mark Anniversary

 A clipping from the Tribune-Democrat dated 12 December 1936. Mr. and Mrs. Charles Schubert of Stone Street - Morrellville celebrating their 50-th Wedding Anniversary. They were friends of my grandfather Lenz and his family.

Johnstown from Cambria Plane

View of Johnstown from around 1915 as seen from the Incline Plane.

U.S. Steel - 1940's

Inside U.S. Steel sometime in the 1940's.

German Day - Island Park 1907

This is taken at Island Park - it was where St. Andrews Church is now. A German Day Celebration in 1907. I sure some of my grandfathers relatives are in this picture somewhere.

Giving a lesson in living history - Browns Farm - Lower Yoder Township

Had the pleasure to host a living history lesson up at Browns (Laurel Hill Settlement). In the above picture - that is my research partner - Elaine Adams giving a talk on the Smiths, Harshbergers, Dormans and Browns.
I kicked things off explaining how the families came to call the mountain home. Twenty-two people made the trek up (no easy task for some) including: members of the Brown family - which I have to say - it was truly an honor to be with them, members of the Johnstown Branch of the NAACP and three DCNR Rangers -  Kim Peck, Jeremy Peck and Bob Hook - that was special to me because the site is also part of Laurel Hill State Park and they walked up with us. It was great to see that lots of kids were also there - for some of them - I am known as the storyteller - for years I have been passing down all the tales I know about the mountain to them.

Along with a poster board of pictures from Browns - I also had some light refreshments on hand since we were there for a couple of hours. The project of restoring the cemetery to its former glory is ongoing and will continue to be so for a while. The hardest part is done - this fall we will be putting in a native flower garden and hopefully next spring will be planting a heritage garden at the site which is another thing I have always wanted to do and with both of those projects we will be working with the state. There are some people that I want to thank: Roger Edwards, RJ Edwards, Kelly Edwards, Elaine Adams and Joann Mock - without all of us working together - this project would never have gotten off the ground. Also a special shoutout to the folks that helped the day of the hike - Misti Piskura and Linda Marker.

This day meant a lot to me - I'd started work on the cemetery in April - and this quickly put together tour started taking shape in early June - so I have to admit that I enjoyed showing the place off - especially given the date - June 19th - which is Juneteenth Day - fitting for the two Black Civil War Veterans buried in the cemetery. Alan Cashaw, President of the Johnstown Branch of the NAACP led everybody in a circle of prayer.

There were five members of the Civil War Group - Susanna Cook, Tent 61 with us including: President, Deedee McGowan and her daughter Julie (members of the Brown family), Linda Marker and her granddaughter Jeannette Metz and Dr. Barbara Zaborowski from Penn Highlands Community College. To wrap things up, Linda Marker played a very fitting tribute - 'Amazing Grace'. She says she picked the number because it's been intertwined with Black culture in many ways - it's was written by John Newton - CLICK HERE to learn more about the British Sailor and Anglican clergyman. But she adds, there is a movie from Nigeria called 'The Amazing Grace' that claims that the tune is a Nigerian tune that he heard on the slave ships.

I think the spirits of the mountain were happy with the fact that they are not forgotten. I'd remarked the next day - if anyone else felt a cold chill in the air (I had goosebumps) for a brief time - others said yes.
I think it's fitting to end this post with a comment from one of the Brown descendants who walked up with us - she says: "I believe they were thankful and appreciate the love and respect shown . The very fact that they still have an impact on their family, even to this day proves that everyone of us has an impact on the world around us. It up to us what that impact is.."

River Control Project

Army Corp of Engineers - working on the River Control Project

Fairfield Avenue Underpass - Morrellville

A quick look at the Fairfield Avenue Underpass in Morrellville - judging from the state of things - I guess my cousin took this picture because they were having flooding issues.

Pay by Phone

 

Pay by Phone - Cambria Savings

1889 Flood

 

Downtown Johnstown - '89

Sani Dairy - 1950's

A nice rare look at the inside workings of old Sani Dairy from around 1953 or so.

Old Gee Bee Ad

 

Old Gee Bee Ad that made me smile....

Trying to Stay Cool

 

 Old Leitenberger Ad - get yourself an air conditioned Plymouth.

Simply Amazing at Browns

Spent the day giving a tour Browns - as part of the celebration - Linda Marker from Somerset County did a beautiful job on "Amazing Grace" - which was most likely sung and played in this same way over 100 years ago.

Flood Wall

A quick look at what was then the newly constructed flood walls. 

Choo Choo Time

 

Old Woolworth Ad for both the Downtown Store and Westwood Plaza.

Santa Arrives

 

Santa Arrives - Westwood Plaza Shopping Center