Did you know?
The following is another Did You Know? quiz about Fayette County history.
1. Which of the following did not pay visits to Uniontown before they were elected president?
A) Abraham Lincoln
B) Harry S. Truman
C) Zachary Taylor
D) Ronald Reagan
E) William Henry Harrison
2. In September of 1934, 500 members of this organization conducted an unusual service at Sylvan Heights Cemetery. What was the organization?
A) The Kiwanis Club
B) United Witches of Fayette County
C) The Ku Klux Klan
D) The Odd Fellows
E) The Rotary Club
3. In June of 1944, when the eyes of the world were on the Normandy invasion, something happened in Fayette County that rivaled the importance of news from the war front. What was it?
A) A deadly tornado
B) Heavyweight boxing champ Joe Louis played in an exhibition softball game in Uniontown.
C) Fallingwater was officially completed.
D) Jonas Salk brought the first samples of his polio vaccine to Uniontown.
E) Bob Hope gave a charity performance at Uniontown’s State Theatre.
4. On Aug. 24, 1920, the big news story in Uniontown was about “enrollment.” What kind of enrollment?
A) Men were being enrolling for the draft.
B) Ella Peach School was open for enrollment.
C) Women were officially enrolled as voters for the first time.
D) The first food stamp program was accepting enrollees.
E) Legendary Uniontown High School’s basketball coach, A.J. Everhart, Sr., sent out a request to potential team members to enroll for the upcoming season.
THE ANSWERS
1. D, Ronald Reagan
According to James Hadden’s “A History of Uniontown,” Lincoln stopped in Uniontown in 1846 on his way to taking his seat in the U.S. Senate.
He conducted business with a local attorney.
Harry S. Truman was still the junior U.S. senator from Missouri when he spoke at the Uniontown Chamber of Commerce’s annual meeting on April 26, 1935.
That was nearly 10 years to the day before he was sworn as president. (April 12, 1945)
It was reported in March of 1840 that 3000 people met William Henry Harrison in Uniontown, when he was traveling to Washington for his inauguration.
He would give the longest inauguration speech in history. But he served the shortest time as president – just 32 days.
Zachary Taylor was also headed to Washington for his inauguration in 1849, when he stopped at the Clinton House on Main Street in Uniontown.
2. C, The Ku Klux Klan
The Klan enjoyed a steep increase in membership across the country during the period between the early and mid-1920’s.
In July of 1922, it was reported that there were branches of the Klan in Masontown, Uniontown and two in Fairchance.
In June of 1923, there was a Klan meeting at the Uniontown Speedway that drew 3,000 people.
Klan activity continued into the 1930s when the Uniontown Morning Herald reported in its September 27, 1934 edition that “one of the most unusual ceremonies in witnessed in Fayette County,” had been held when 500 Klan members took part in a nighttime memorial service at Sylvan Heights Cemetery.
3. A, A deadly tornado.
Two weeks after D-Day, a thousand people were injured and 146 residents of north-central West Virginia and southwest Pennsylvania died, when the tornado swept through the region.
Locally, it was reported in the June 24 edition of the Morning Herald that seven people had died near Fredericktown, and that seven people were hurt when their homes were devastated in the area of Smithfield.
Uniontown, which didn’t suffer from the direct effects of the tornado, still saw widespread property damage caused by flying debris.
4. C, Women were officially enrolled as voters for the first time.
While women could vote in many parts of the United States since 1869, the 19th Amendment didn’t become the law across the land until August of 1920.
By the way, by 1920 women in Austria, British East India, Canada, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Iceland, Poland Netherlands, Italy, Lithuania, Sweden, the Ukraine and even in Russia could already vote.
In Russia, they could not only vote, but they could hold cabinet level positions, and serve in the parliament.
With the passage of women’s suffrage, elections officials wasted little time in going door-to-door, registering women voters.
In Uniontown, Fayette County’s election registrar, Charles Fee, boasted of having registered 80 women on the first day he went out.
He even told the Morning Herald one story, which now seems rather ironic.
When he knocked on one woman’s door, she asked, “Do I have to decide this thing right now? I haven’t talked it over with my husband yet, and I don’t want to take any action until I talk to him.”
Old habits, they say, are hard to die. But it’s heartening to know some old habits have long since faded away.
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Edward A. Owens can be reached by e-mail at freedoms@bellatlantic.net.