Did you know?
On this date 98 years ago, it was reported on the front page of the Uniontown Morning Herald that local hotelier George Titlow had collected $150 toward the town’s first ambulance.
Private subscribers were being solicited around the area who would contribute $1 each (“the maximum amount that could be given by any one person”), that would eventually lead to the purchase of the “first class ambulance.”
Titlow had a long way to go to reach his goal. It was reported that the estimated cost of the emergency vehicle would be $2,000.
That wasn’t the first time local folks were enlisted to do their part for the benefit of their town.
A year earlier, on May 20, 1915, it was reported on the front page of the Morning Herald that thousands of men were expected to take part in “Good Roads Day” the following week.
Good Roads Day, was a statewide project in which private citizens would contribute their labor to repairing the state’s roadways.
As part of the planning, there was going to be a “big parade” in Connellsville, with drivers of cars given banners reading, “I’ll Work on Good Roads Day,” to help lure volunteers.
All of that planning must have worked. On the morning of the project, there was a large headline on the front page of the Morning Herald that said: “Governor Brumbaugh Today Leads 150,000 Pennsylvanians To Work on State-wide Good Roads Day in 67 Counties.”
That didn’t include the 50,000 women (apparently, in those days, somebody didn’t consider them to be “Pennsylvanians”) were also expected to participate.
The following day, readers of the Morning Herald were greeted with the following front page headline: “5,000 men work on roads: more money from state.”
Below that headline, there was a sub-headline that explained just how successful the day had been locally.
“State Highway Department Estimates Show Good Roads Day in Fayette County was Greater Success Than Anticipated …. Additional $31,500 from State Department for Improvement of Highways in This County,” said the paragraph-sized heading.
Josh Gibson is considered to be one of the greatest baseball players in history. His legendary exploits while playing for the Pittsburgh Crawfords and the Homestead Grays of the Negro Leagues have been well-documented. According to baseball historians, Gibson hit 962 home runs during his 17-year career.
There is that oft-mentioned tale of his slugging prowess that goes like this: It was the bottom of the ninth inning at Forbes Field, when he came up to bat against the team from Philadelphia. He hit a ball so high and so far, nobody saw where it landed.
The following day the Pittsburgh Crawfords were playing against the same team in Philadelphia, when a ball fell from the sky, and their center fielder caught it. The umpire ran up to Gibson, who was in the on-deck circle at the time, and he shouted, “You’re out — yesterday — in Pittsburgh!”
Of course, that’s just part of a popular fiction. But there is one Josh Gibson story that seems rather believable. He’s said to have hit one home run “clean” out of a stadium in Philadelphia. That ball did come down. It landed on a passing train headed for Pittsburgh. That could (technically) be the longest home-run ever hit — 306 miles.
That is, unless you consider another home run that was hit by a Uniontown man, 99 years ago this month.
“Home Run Caught By Engineer on Moving Train — Ball Going Yet,” said the headline for an item in the May 26th, 1915, edition of the Morning Herald.
“Donald Stone, shortstop for the Uniontown Printers baseball team made the longest hit every seen in this section of the country yesterday in a game with Brownfield as the ball is still going unless the train was sidetracked,” said the lead paragraph.
Curiously, the train’s engineer was wearing a baseball glove, which added to the somewhat questionable veracity of the claim. “The engineer stuck out a canvas gloved hand. The ball stuck. Engineer, ball and train are still going and what the length of the hit was can only be determined upon locating that engineer who by the way must be some ball player,” the report concluded.
On this date 59 years ago, the Morning Herald announced the name of the man who would deliver the dedicatory address for the new annex at Uniontown Joint Senior High School the following evening.
Dr. Kenneth McFarland was a renowned public speaker and educator, who was also known as a lecturer for General Motors. Politically, Dr. McFarland is considered to be one of the first of the modern conservatives. But he also had another claim to fame — of sorts.
The U.S. Supreme Court had ruled against the Topeka, Kansas, school board during the previous year in the Brown vs. Board of Education case.
That ruling effectively ended segregation in the nation’s schools by stating that “separate educational facilities are inherently unequal.”
The superintendent of Topeka’s schools at the time of that case was none other than Dr. Kenneth McFarland.