`Locals look backat what and whodefined our century`

By Karen Coates,Tom Fontaineand Kristen Garrett
Herald Staff Writers

1999ís passing marks the end of a century in which Mercer County underwent many changes and experienced a number of notable events.

While itís impossible to say definitively what was the most important, memorable or significant event of the last 100 years, The Herald enlisted the help of a few longtime county residents, local historians and others to determine informally some of the top local stories of the century.

The list includes the birth and death of many of the countyís huge industrial companies, a sensational kidnapping some might call the local crime of the century, the preeminent role of transportation in the areaís development, the impact of Camp Reynolds on the county and a few bouts of deadly weather.

Whitla Kidnapping. For a week in 1909, the nation turned its attention to the Shenango Valley when eight-year-old Billy Whitla, the son of a prominent Sharon attorney, was kidnapped and held for ransom by a Sharon couple.

A chilling ransom note sent to the Whitla home read: ìDead boys, like dead men, tell no tales. Billy is held for $10,000.î

The kidnapping caper ended with Billy being released in Cleveland. He was reunited with his family and greeted by a line of 7,000 well-wishers that stretched from the Erie Railroad station downtown to the familyís home up East State Street.

The kidnappers ó James F. Boyle, and his supposed wife, who went by the aliases Anna McDermott and Helen Faulkner ó were arrested, convicted and imprisoned. Boyle, sentenced to a life term, died in prison. Mrs. Boyle was paroled after serving 10 years of her 25-year sentence.

Tornadoes of 1947 and 1985. Deadly twisters ripped through the county leaving a total of 14 people dead and millions of dollars in damage.

The tornado of June 7, 1947, roared in from Ohio killing two men and injured about 50 others, according to newspaper accounts.

Two men were killed when the Gordon Ward Pontiac garage on Budd Street was demolished by the fierce winds. More than 300 homes and businesses were hit. Several families were left homeless. The tornado was estimated to have caused $1 million in damage.

Disaster struck again on May 31, 1985 when the worst tornadoes in Mercer County history killed 12 people and caused about $25 million in damage and leveled a large part of Wheatland. The tornadoes touched down ìwith bullet-like swiftness,î The Herald reported at the time. Hardest hit were parts of Hermitage and Wheatland and Atlantic in Crawford County.

ìThe sky was orange, everything was calm and then all I could hear was like thousands and thousands of airplanes roaring ó it was a hell of a roar,î one observer said.

Hermitageís evolution. Over the course of a century, sparsely populated farmland grew into the countyís largest city.

Hermitageís suburban sprawl began at the end of World War II when many Sharon and Farrell residents were ready to move from their cramped city dwellings to homes with plenty of land in Hickory Township.

The building of homes coupled with the development of shopping centers in the í50s and í60s, jump-started the transformation of played out coal mines and farm land into a residential and residential mecca.

Edward DeBartolo began building Hickory Plaza, a one-stop shopping center in 1953. The $2.5 million plaza, later renovated and renamed Hermitage Towne Plaza, changed the shape of shopping in the Shenango Valley with its acres of free parking and concentration of stores. The First Class Township of Hickory become the Municipality of Hermitage on Jan. 2, 1976. The change was supported by 93 percent of the voters. Then on Jan. 1, 1984, after two years of research and a referendum, Hermitage became a third-class city.

Industrial leadership. Two men are credited with creating and revitalizing the thriving industries that characterized the Shenango Valley for much of the century ó Frank H. Buhl and Henry A. Roemer.

Buhl helped start the industry that became the economic foundation of the Shenango Valley. He organized Buhl Steel Co., which later became National Steel Co. and later became part of U.S. Steel, in 1896. Buhl and his family made lasting contributions to community life, including Buhl Farm Park in 1915 and F.H. Buhl Club.

Around 1945, Roemer moved into the area and took over the faltering mills in Farrell. As president of Sharon Steel Corp., the Pittsburgh Steel Co. and Niles Rolling Mills Co. Roemer revived the local steel industry. Under his guidance Sharon Steel bought the former Carnegie Works mill in Farrell.

ìAs he brought Sharon Steel out of the gloom, faith in him as a healer was spreading and he was called to minister to other steel companies,î The Herald said in 1958. ìHe was sort of a savior,î Wally Wachter, a retired managing editor of The Herald, remembered.

World War II. The impact WWII had on Mercer County, was monumental, said Peter J. Joyce, Sharpsville. About 2,000 local men and women served in the war and about 500 did not return alive, the WWII Army captain, former mayor of Sharpsville and county commissioner said. In addition to the countyís soldiers, Camp Reynolds in Pymatuning Township was a stopping point for hundreds of thousands of soldiers who were waiting to be shipped overseas.

The soldiers quickly became a fixture in county life, specifically Greenville and the Shenango Valley, during and after their service careers.

Many of the soldiers stayed in the area or returned here after the war, said Gwen Lininger, chairman of the Greenville Borough Historical Society.

Two years after the camp opened in 1941 the population of Greenville almost doubled. In 1940, Greenvilleís population was 8,149. In 1943, it was 13,015. ìPeople said that if anyone had a broom closet they could rent it out,î she joked.

Mrs. Lininger added that more than 800,000 soldiers passed through the U.S.O. Recreation Center in Riverside Park during WWII.

ìCamp Reynolds made an impact on this area commercially, culturally, economically ... in just about every way,î Mrs. Lininger said.

During the war, Greenville was a bustling community. ìMain Street used to be elbow-to-elbow people ... Everything got bigger and better (while Camp Reynolds was open as a replacement depot),î she said.

Transportation. Improvements in transportation speeded the pace of local development. By the turn of the century, railroads had already ended the freight-hauling dominance of canals and the steel rails that tied the county together served both business and industry.

ìAndrew Carnegie was here at the turn of the century and observed a railroad that carried coal from Mercer County to ports in Erie and Ashtabula counties,î Mrs. Lininger said. ìThe cars were then reloaded for their return trip with iron ore, which went to the countyís steel mills.î In about 1908, Carnegie bought the railroad and named it Bessemer and Lake Erie Railroad, adding it to Pittsburghís enormous U.S. Steel empire, Mrs. Lininger said.

ìThe railroad was the lifeblood of transportation, the lifeblood of business and industry,î said Bill Philson, executive director of Mercer County Historical Society.

Philson said before Governor Gifford Pinchot got county residents and farmers out of the mud in the 1930s, traveling from one end of the county was slow and sometimes impossible. Transportation has been an evolutionary process, Philson added. The railroads were ó from the turn of the century until the 1960s ó the major freight deliverers.

The Devolution of Downtown. Like transportation, Philson said, business has steadily changed. As transportation changed, so did peopleís shopping habits, Philson said. ìAt one time you could buy everything you needed downtown,î he said. ìThe sidewalks were crowded and the bustling downtowns were full of activity. People were always milling about on Fridays and Saturdays.î

Philson said the mid-1950s opening of Hickory Plaza and the opening of Shenango Valley Mall in the late 1960s slowly reshaped local business districts and sucked life out of the downtowns in Sharon, Farrell and Sharpsville. ìThe mom-and-pop businesses began to die,î Philson said. Today, the malls are being challenged by the emergence of one-stop ìsupercenters.î ìThe buying habits of people have changed,î Philson said.

Shenango River Lake. Before Shenango Dam was constructed flooding was a regularity in Shenango Valley. In the 1950s and early-1960s the water was frequently as high as 16 feet over the flood level, Philson said.

Philson said the damís benefits have been enormous. ìThe dam saved millions of dollars,î he said, adding that annual flood relief was a costly expense.

Additionally, Philson said the dam ìhas been great for Mercer Countyî in terms of tourism. Retired Herald editor Wally Wachter called the dam the ìgreatestî thing to happen to the are in the century.

Bottom drops out. The í80s and í90s, brought the collapse of the industries the likes of Frank H. Buhl and Henry A. Roemer built up in the early part of the century. Midland Ross Corp. abandoned its National Castings foundry in Sharon in 1982. Chicago Bridge & Iron in Greenville and Greenville Steel Car, the predecessor to Trinity, closed around the same time. Westinghouse Corp. shuttered its Sharon Transformer Division in 1985. Sharon Steel Corp., steadily bleeding jobs despite transfusions of government aid, died nearly penniless in its 1992 bankruptcy.

Manufacturers employed about 16,600 workers in 1980 in Mercer County, according to Penn Northwest Development Corp. With the closings of so many local plants, the areaís mill jobs dwindled to about 8,500 in 1987. When Sharon Steel gasped its last breath, an additional 3,000 jobs expired. The countyís annual loss in wages and salaries was in the millions of dollars after the plants closed, said Larry Reichert, executive director of Penn Northwest.

Edith Hogue said she remembers being shocked at the closing of Westinghouse, where she helped to build the cores of electrical transformers from 1935 to 1949. The rise of labor unions, the war and the prosperity that followed brought changes over the years but Mrs. Hogue said she never expected to see the giant plant closed forever.

ìDespite the losses, the community has rallied back,î Reichard said. Dozens of smaller companies have moved into the county, expanded and helped to increase manufacturing employment back to about 13,000 jobs.

The Big Snow. In 1950 Mercer County was buried by a snowstorm of epic proportions. Snow that began to fall the night of Nov. 24 continued the next day and into the evening. By then, communities were blanketed under 22 inches of snow. The storm continued, dumping an additional 28 inches of snow, a total of just over four feet before it moved on. Damage in Sharon was estimated at $110,000.

Mrs. Hogue, who lived on Sieg Hill in Wheatland at the time, remembered her pregnancy during the big snow. ìI was afraid I would go into labor,î she said. During the storm and its aftermath, Mrs. Hogue said, she relied on her neighbors to bring her food and supplies.

Frozen flood. The ìfrozen floodî on Jan. 20, 1959, lingers in memory because of the damage it left behind. The storm began with a 5-inch snowfall before rising temperatures changed snow to rain. Three inches of rain swelled the Shenango River over its banks, flooding most of Wheatland and downtown Sharon. The temperatures fell throughout the night and the flood waters turned to a mass of ice. The river crested at 18 feet above flood stage and receded slowly because of the ice.

Nearly 800 people living in low lying areas were evacuated on the morning of Jan. 21. Downtown Sharon merchants sustained $2 million of the $6 million of damage caused by the flood. Wally Wachter cited the frozen flood as the chief selling point by local residents and representatives in a plea to Congress to appropriate funds for construction of Shenango Dam.

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MERCER COUNTY AREA

Locals look back at what and who defined our century

`Locals look backat what and whodefined our century`