Introduction to “The West Enders”
Washington’s West End, for as far back as anyone alive today can remember, has always been a hardscrabble, working-class neighborhood, a place loved by many of its residents in spite of its roughness; a place where residents compete to maintain the nicest yards, but also where drug dealers roam and bullets fly.
It was not so different in 1935, in the depths of the Great Depression, when a popular West Ender named Ray Kunselman fell in love with Dorothy Horne, a teenage factory worker. Their stormy, yearlong romance, their desperate attempts to escape poverty and achieve some sort of happiness, would only end in tragedy.
“The West Enders: A Story of Murder in Desperate Times,” a seven-part serial that begins today, is a true story, based on old newspaper accounts, local and state prison documents, the trial transcript and interviews with people living in Washington and the West End at the time.
Although some detail and description have been added to improve the flow of the story, all of the dialogue is taken directly from the 375-page transcript of Commonwealth of Pennsylvania vs. Ray Kunselman.
“The West Enders” will be published weekly and will also appear with additional photos and graphics on www.observer-reporter.com. It is written by Park Burroughs, retired executive editor, whose previous historical serial, “A Death in the Lyric,” won the Keystone Press Award for feature series and the Press Club of Western Pennsylvania’s Golden Quill Award. Burroughs is also the author of “Enter, With Torches: Recollections of a Grumpy Old Editor,” and editor of “200 Years: Out History Through the Pages of the Observer-Reporter.”