Jul 29, 2002 By Al Owens 4 min read

I came home to Uniontown for the Christmas holidays in the late 1980s and saw something I’d never seen before. The mountains! Let me back up. I’d seen the mountains before, but I’d never really noticed them. I had been living in Wichita, Kan., for nearly two years and mountains just don’t exist there. It is among the flattest places I’ve ever seen. So, when I walked out of the Uniontown Mall during that visit I was startled when I saw the mountains just above this town.

Wichita is only one of 19 places I’d lived between Dec. 11, 1967 and Dec. 6, 1996. No wonder it’s like I’m still seeing things that always existed, but I’d never noticed before.

Why, for instance, are there Uniontown streets named after McClellandtown, New Salem, Connellsville, Morgantown and Pittsburgh, but there are no streets named after Uniontown in those towns?

I’m planning to drive directly to Connellsville and demand that Connellsville City Council rename Crawford Avenue, Uniontown Street. Wish me luck. I’ll need it. I haven’t had much luck trying to get anybody to change any street names these days.

I’ve even had certain people question my efforts to rename Uniontown streets and parks in honor of a few notable natives. For those people (and for those people who thought they knew, but didn’t), here’s why I’m doing it. It’s those darned mountains. It’s because of those utterly beautiful, emerald green hills that surround nearly all of us.

The founders of Uniontown seemed to think that all roads – McClellandtown, New Salem and Morgantown – must lead out of Uniontown. I say they all lead to Uniontown. And I’ve never seen a single shred of information that would lead me to think otherwise.

This area, this town, needs to tell the people who live here and the people who come here from over those glorious hills that we’re special. We have had more than our share of champions, of heroes, of landmarks. This little rural county has had two Heisman Trophy recipients, Johnny Lujack and Ernie Davis; numerous all Americans, Chuck Muncie, Wil Robinson and the first African-American to become an all American at quarterback, Sandy Stephens, among them; a Nobel Peace Prize recipient and U.S. Secretary of State George C. Marshall; an astronaut; an Olympic gold medalist, Johnny Woodruff; a member of the Basketball Hall of Fame, Charles Hyatt, and the single most important structure Fallingwater built by the single most influential architect Frank Lloyd Wright.

It’s the home of the Big Mac. It’s the onetime workplace of the former CEO of Kmart Corporation Joseph Antonini. It’s the birthplace of former pro basketball star and current color commentator for the Los Angeles Lakers Stu Lantz, Major League pitcher Terry Mulholland and NFL coach Eugene Huey.

These are all facts we should be telling everybody who visits. On every route into the county and into our town, we should remind our visitors, and ourselves, we are indeed special.

Every day we ignore our own accomplishments, we fail to let the rest of the world know that we know how special we really have been. So special that these greats have come through the mountains to visit us: William Jennings Bryan (I really think he was doing research for the Scopes trial) Joe Louis, Jerry West, Hot Rod Hundley, Moe Howard, Byron “Whizzer” White, Tiger Woods, Martin Luther King, Sr., Robert Mitchum, Stan Musial, Willie Stargell, Hal Holbrook, Jersey Joe Walcott, Bishop Fulton Sheen, Chubby Checker, Nastasia Kinski, Junior Walker and the All-stars and, of course, Sharon Stone.

If you’ve read this far, I’m sure you can remember even more world renowned visitors to Uniontown who might have discovered how special we are.

All that was needed was a few words on a few signs: Welcome to Fayette County, Pennsylvania – The Birthplace of Heisman Trophy Winners Johnny Lujack and Ernie Davis.

I can think of dozens of similar signs and places to put them.

Al Owens is Uniontown native and a veteran broadcaster who worked in radio and television for more than two decades.

He is now a Web site developer and serves as the webmaster of Red Raider Nation.