Greene County motorist’s grandchildren help ID photo
Mystery photo 41
Rebecca Garber of Waynesburg submitted this photo of her grandfather, Gordon Wood, taken in another location.
The same area of Richhill and College streets in Waynesburg, as it looks today
Readers called and emailed us with possible locations for this week’s Mystery Photo, and a few of them were way off. Some guessed the old car and its driver were captured in East Washington, Scenery Hill and several locations in Washington, including Shannon Avenue and behind Washington High School.
Those who told us the picture was taken in Waynesburg are correct, and positive proof came from the young motorist’s grandchildren, cousins Becky Garber and Dave Wood, who possess the same photo.
“I’m almost positive I have the glass negative,” Wood said. “I remember making a print from it years ago.”
The man driving the car is Gordon Wood. “He worked on cars a lot, and I think the car belonged to Mr. Throckmorton,” Dave Wood said. His grandfather “worked on saw mills, and later in life was county auditor, but mostly he worked on saw mills.”
Judge Farley Toothman was the first reader to identify Gordon Wood as the driver and the corner of Richhill and College streets to be the location. He guessed the photo was taken between 1905 and 1910 and named the three women as sisters Mary Denny Weaver, Josephine Denny and Helen Denny Howard.
“I think the photos were taken in or around the same time that the book ‘Waynesburg Prosperous and Beautiful’ was being published,” wrote Toothman in an email. “And this makes sense because I know that E.L. Denny (the girls’ father) financed the publication of that book.”
The location suggested by Toothman can be confirmed by a detail not visible in the photo published in the newspaper or in the image available at www.observer-reporter.com. Under magnification of the original print, a street sign reading “W. College St.” can be seen attached to the brick of the house on the right. That eliminates Washington as a possible location, because its College Street runs north and south. Canonsburg also has a College Street that runs west and east as Waynesburg’s does, but several of our readers were able to identify the buildings that are no longer there.
“That house on the right is where the First Presbyterian Church now is located. The large house on the left has been razed, too,” wrote Christie Campbell, who recently retired as a reporter and photographer for the O-R and spent many years working out of the Waynesburg office.
According to Toothman, the large house on the left was known recently as the Presbyterian Church Parish House before it was demolished. John Albert said it once served as the TKE fraternity house.
Thanks go to all the readers who helped solve this week’s puzzle. Look for another Mystery Photo in next Monday’s Observer-Reporter.