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Photo dredging up memories

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We received a couple dozen responses to our most recent Mystery Photo from readers who are quite confident they solved the puzzle. The problem is that not too many of them agree on the location. The picture may have dredged up memories, but for most responders those memories were of someplace else.

We had readers guess the photo showed construction of Canonsburg Lake and No. 4 Dam in North Franklin Township. Others thought it might be the old slate dump in Clarksville or Harmon Creek Lake in Burgettstown. Two readers guessed the scene might have been near the old zinc plant in Langeloth. Bob Selway thought it might be a pond near a slate dump in Tylerdale he remembers from the early 1950s. “We used to go down there and light a fire and skate on that pond,” Selway said.

At least three people thought the scene is of the Mather slate dump and reservoir in Greene County. “That picture was probably taken in August when the reservoir was really down,” said Harvey Litten. “There was a beaver dam there and people used to go down there to watch the beavers.”

Six of our readers, however, have come up with the most logical explanation and location for the picture: the construction of the Ellsworth reservoir near the slate dump of the old Ellsworth mine.

”What gives it away is the telephone pole,” Tony Rossi said. “That pole is still there. The slate dump has been leveled, but that’s still an active line through there.”

Gilbert Cicci of Bentleyville agreed. The photo struck him as the same scene he remembers as a little boy, when he used to fish and ice skate on the pond, which was drained about six years ago.

Hugh “Buzz” Carey of Monongahela lived in Ellsworth as a boy. “Redwing blackbirds used to fly into Ellsworth, they would blacken the sky, and they would settle down on that sea of cattails,” he recalled. He and several other readers who called us used to fish and swim in the dam. The spillway released water under the railroad tracks into Pigeon Creek.

Following directions from Cicci, Rossi and Carey, I drove around the old mine works and found the water works building that was built in 1946. (It would have been just out of the photo to the left.) Public water now comes from the Monongahela River, and the building is used by the borough road department. The line of utility poles seems to follow the same direction as those in the Mystery Photo, and the slate dump, although much lower, are still there, as is an expanse of cattails where the reservoir once was.

We can’t say for certain whether Ellsworth is the correct location, but the evidence seems to point that way. We do know the photo was taken sometime between 1946 and 1949, when construction of the Ellsworth water works was taking place. It would have been an endeavor worthy enough to attract the newspaper’s attention. However, we encourage our readers who think otherwise to present evidence to the contrary.

Look for another Mystery Photo in next Monday’s Observer-Reporter.

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