Did you know?
It certainly must have raised lots of eyebrows in Uniontown on Feb. 18, 1952, when the readers of the Evening Standard learned that “Uniontown (is) Going To (the) Dogs.”
That was according to Uniontown’s Police Chief Alfred W. Davis, who was fed up with all of the stray dogs that had begun running free throughout the city. Chief Davis announced there’s a “strict drive” to round up the pesky strays that had roamed through private properties and torn up lawns and shrubbery.
Back in those days, though, a few undisciplined animals, while still front-page news, paled in comparison to the brewing worldwide threat that had cast a shadow across the country.
It was simply a sign of the times, when the Evening Standard’s front page carried the headline, “A-Bomb Protection Data To Be Distributed Here,” on Feb. 16, 1951.
Once again, Chief Davis sprang into action but only to help distribute the 2,500 pamphlets entitled: “If We Are Bombed — A Handbook for Your Protection.”
Chief Davis turned the pamphlets over to the ward auxiliary police lieutenants, with the hopes that they could be placed in “each home in Uniontown.”
A hundred years ago this week, there was, according to some folks, another kind of threat that had been of great interest in Uniontown.
“Would close pool rooms at 9 o’clock,” read the headline on the front page of the Uniontown Morning Herald on Feb. 18, 1914.
It seems that members of a local organization known as the “City Beautiful League” was about to approach members of Uniontown’s City Council with a proposal to close pool halls, which were, according to them, “places of great temptations to young boys.”
After all, according to the group’s president, “many of the pool rooms along Main Street were in basements, so that people passing along the streets could not tell what was going on inside them.” Here’s a hint. They were playing pool! The City Beautiful League simply wanted the pool rooms closed at the same time bars closed in the city — 9 o’clock.
I was unable to determine if Uniontown City Council went along with the crusade.
On that same day, there was an interesting ad that appeared in the Morning Herald.
“Make Your Kisses As Welcome As You!” said the large ad for Wrigley’s Spearmint Pepsin Gum.”
The ad featured a hand-drawn picture of a woman holding her small child. But it also contained a laundry list of supposed health benefits you’d enjoy if you merely plunked down 85 cents and took home 20, five cent packages of the stuff.
“Purify your breath instantly of tobacco, vegetable or other odors. It relieves heartburn or flatulence. It brightens your teeth, aids your digestion, sharpens your appetite,” it said, as if it was really a wonder drug.
Of course, the fact that Wrigley’s, as with other popular chewing gums at the time used “pepsin” as one of its ingredients, assured it of having some medicinal properties. Pepsin was actually used as an aid to digestion.
By the way, when William Wrigley Jr. developed his new confection in the 1890s, he gave it to Chicago’s merchants when they bought cans of the baking powder he sold.
It’s been written that his chewing gum soon outsold his baking powder. And Mr. Wrigley would be pleased to know that Americans buy more than $2 billion worth of chewing gum each year.
“‘Ear’ Witness describes shrieks, cries of Monaghan coming from Bertillon Room,” read the banner headline across the front page of the Feb. 16, 1936, edition of the Morning Herald.
It had been yet another dramatic day of testimony in Somerset, in the famous case of the “third degree” murder of Uniontown’s Frank Monaghan while in police custody. Herald-Genius staff writer Joe L. Dickson, who had been sitting on a window ledge outside of the room where Monaghan died, took the witness stand, and he testified how he heard the sounds of blows, pleas for mercy, running water, dull thuds and then — silence.”
Over the years, I’ve diligently searched for the earliest mention of George C. Marshall in local newspapers. While I’ve found a number of references to his father, George C. Marshall Sr., I’ve not found any newspaper reports about his school days in Uniontown.
However, there is an extensive repository of the personal recordings he made in 1956 and 1957, in which he spoke freely for dozens of hours — totaling 19 tapes. He spoke for four solid hours about his childhood in Uniontown. You can listen to them yourself on the George C, Marshall Foundation website, http://www.marshallfoundation.org/library/pogue_tapes)
It’s so fascinating, I just could write a complete column about those recordings in the future.