Big wheel

This photograph shows Pittsburgh bicyclist Frank Lenz on Route 40 with Washington in the background. It was taken by C. H. Petticord, president of the Alleghany Cyclers (Lenz was captain). Lenz and other Pittsburgh wheelmen toured on their high-wheel bikes as well as raced them. He left his accounting job in 1892 and set off on a bicycle trip around the world (riding a safety bike with equal size tires), subsidized by Outing magazine. So, this photograph would have been taken before 1892. Lenz did not complete his trip; he was murdered in Eastern Turkey. A book by David V. Herlihy on Lenz, his adventure, and the aftermath is due to be published this June.
I won't attempt to say what is in the photo, though it would be well if somebody does. Because of the date, I would think the well would have been drilled for gas, not oil.

(Submitted by Jim Herron)

Then and now

These four photographs were taken from about the same spot on West Pike Street in Canonsburg over a period of more than a century. (Click on photos for larger image.) In the upper left is a view taken before the Great Fire of 1898, when the buildings on the right half of the picture were destroyed. In the photo below it, the south side of Pike Street has been rebuilt, but the street is still dirt, so it is before 1903.

The photo at the top right was taken in 1962, and the one below about 2002. The little hot-dog stand ("Sandwich Shop") and the Gowern Building had been replaced by a parking lot.

(Submitted by Jim Herron)

Howdy, pardner

Little Bennie Welch, of South Side Canonsburg, Pa., got this cowboy outfit on Christmas Day 1913. The photo was taken by Howard M. Taylor on the walk behind the Taylor home.

(Submitted by Jim Herron)

Girls, circa 1912

Howard M. Taylor made this photo of some unidentified girls. The picture is undated, but the flags have 48 stars in a peculiar pattern. Arizona entered the Union in February 1912, and later in the year the pattern of the stars was officially set for the first time. So, one could surmise that the flags were made in 1912.

Also note the swastika pin worn by one of the girls. The sinister meaning did not come about until the rise of Hitler and Nazism in the 1930s.
The word "swastika" comes from the Sanskrit svastika - which means "to be good."
According to About.com, until the Nazis used this symbol, the swastika was used by many cultures throughout the past 3,000 years to represent life, sun, power, strength, and good luck.

Even in the early twentieth century, the swastika was still a symbol with positive connotations. For instance, the swastika was a common decoration that often adorned cigarette cases, postcards, coins, and buildings. During World War I, the swastika could even be found on the shoulder patches of the American 45th Division and on the Finnish air force until after World War II.
(Photo submitted by Jim Herron)

All aboard!

The Canonsburg Depot is seen in this RealPhoto post card by Martin Estep. It wasn't mailed, so there is no date, but it had to be before 1909, when the frame depot was replaced with the brick one that is still standing.

The flagman, whose job it was to stop traffic when trains approached, had a little heated shanty across Jefferson Avenue from the station. That probably is him standing in the street.

Trains coming from Pittsburgh stopped at the platform by the station. The Washington-to-Pittsburgh train passengers used the platform on the side of the tracks nearest the photographer. A fence eventually was erected between the tracks to keep reckless people from taking a short-cut across the couplers.

(Photo submitted by Jim Herron)

Winter transport

This photograph of a horse-drawn sled on a snowy day in Canonsburg is from a scrap book assembled by Walter (Dink) McPeake. The location is the intersection of North Central Avenue and College Street with the Canonsburg High School campus in the background.
The high school moved into the nearer building in 1913 and the Moretti statue honoring veterans, placed in 1924, is not there, so the picture had to have been taken some time around the First World War (during which Dink McPeake served in France). The identities of the people in the photo and the reason for the suitcases are not known.
The sled long since has been replaced by pick-up trucks. Considering the steepness of the hill, one wonders how the horse and sled would have gone down North Central or College Street.

The buildings are gone, the sled probably is, too, but the snowy street would be pretty much the same today.

(Photo submitted by Jim Herron)

In my day ...

There was a time, long ago, when big trucks with giant snowplows didn't exist. There weren't even smaller trucks that scatter granules that melt ice. The photo was taken in 1913 on South Central Avenue, Canonsburg, by Howard M. Taylor. Two teams of horses, one hitched to each end of a long board, scraped at least some of the snow off the road.

(Submitted by Jim Herron)