Alfred King’s Forgotten Fossil Footprints

Posted by on May 11, 2015 in | Comments Off on Alfred King’s Forgotten Fossil Footprints The science of paleontology – the study of ancient life based on fossils – began in Western Europe about 1800. It soon cropped up in the United States, as the populace of a young and growing nation discovered many fossils. Among these early discoveries were those of fossil footprints, most famously found during the early 1800s in the Connecticut River Valley of Massachusetts and...
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Fayette at the Crossroads

Posted by on Nov 30, 2013 in | Comments Off on Fayette at the Crossroads Fayette County has always been at the crossroads, both literally and figuratively, its destiny shaped by its location, the incredible riches of its natural resources and the vi­tality of a people descended from al­most every nation of Europe. It has a son of dual personality, geo­graphically divided between mountains and lowlands, historically divided into two almost equal eras of economic...
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Transportation in Pennsylvania in 1776

Posted by on Nov 29, 2013 in | Comments Off on Transportation in Pennsylvania in 1776 During the Revolution, Pennsylvania was a central stage from the standpoint of geography, leadership, manpower, and supplies. Therefore, its transportation facilities were of special significance. The southeastern part of the State produced large quantities of the very materials needed by the Continental Army. A modest network of roads made possible the transporting of those materials to Valley...
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Bookshelf

Posted by on Nov 26, 2013 in | Comments Off on Bookshelf Stoneware of Southwestern Pennsylvania by Phil Schaltenbrand University of Pittsburgh Press, 1996 (216 pages, paper, $22.95) A greatly expanded version of the author’s Old Pots (1978), Stoneware of Southwestern Pennsylvania describes the salt-glazed stoneware industry that once flourished in the Monongahela and Youghiogheny Valleys and contains much new information about the remarkable...
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Lost and Found

Posted by on Nov 26, 2013 in | Comments Off on Lost and Found Lost The Smithton Bridge spanning the Youghiogheny River was fabricated in 1900 by the Pittsburgh Bridge Company and erected by Nelson and Buchanan, a Chambersburg, Franklin County, contracting firm which acted as an agent for the com­pany. An important engineering landmark, the Smithton Bridge was an example of a suspended cantilever truss, introduced in the United States about 1885. Such...
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The “War History” of Corporal Funk

Posted by on Nov 20, 2013 in | Comments Off on The “War History” of Corporal Funk
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Fishing on the Yough River

Posted by on Nov 20, 2013 in | Comments Off on Fishing on the Yough River The Youghiogheny (pronounced yock-ah-gay-nee) River – known to locals, anglers, and kayakers as “The Yough” – is a 134-mile long tributary of the Monongahela River which rises in northern West Virginia, flows through Maryland, and enters southwestern Pennsylvania on the border between Fayette and Somerset Counties. It joins the Monongahela from the southeast at...
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