Histories & Mysteries: Aliquippa emerges from its fiery beginnings to represent the American Dream – The Times

Aliquippa becomes home to people from around the world, a place with community pride and a legendary blue-collar work ethic crafted in the fiery ovens of the mills. Over the next 90 years, Aliquippa would see its share of ups and downs, but its beginnings are a story that can never be taken away.

This is the fourth and final column in a series detailing the complete and definitive history of Aliquippa.

The decade of the 1910s was a pivotal one in American history. The opulence of the Gilded Age had given way to a steady stream of assembly-line factories, mill towns and thriving cities that were suddenly growing up instead of out due to the proliferation of steel production. Skyscrapers were the new game in town.

In the northeast, cities such as New York, Philadelphia, Boston and, of course, Pittsburgh, were growly rapidly. The same was happening to St. Louis, Detroit and Chicago in the Midwest and in San Francisco and Los Angeles on the West Coast.Each city had its own share of both promise and blight, as illustrated by the ghetto neighborhoods that surrounded most industrial areas. The rich were still getting richer, even in 1910.

Outside of the major cities, America was more akin to the lifestyle of the 19th century. The concept of the suburb was one that wouldnt materialize for another few decades, so anyone living outside of the reach of railroads or streetcar lines was essentially cut off from the modern world. Automobiles were beginning to appear, but they were still very much a novelty item for the wealthy.

Farming was still the main occupation outside of the cities, but it was getting much more difficult to make a living doing it. Railroads had connected the nation, making farming a national industry instead of a local one. Massive farms in the west were producing millions of tons of produce each year with much less overhead, resulting in large quantities of cheap food that could be transported anywhere in the country via rail. A grocery store in New York could now sell real Georgia peaches, grapes from California, potatoes from Idaho, and corn from Indiana all in the same week.

In the south, the second post-slavery generation of African-Americans were still dealing with rampant oppression. Jim Crow laws, upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court in the case of Plessy v. Ferguson In 1896, had created the "separate but equal" legal doctrine, legalizing racial segregation in the former Confederate states. Southern Blacks wanted and deserved a chance at a better life.

All of these reasons were considered by the Jones & Laughlin Steel Corp. when advertising its new steel town of Woodlawn in 1910. The company had thousands of jobs to fill in the now-operating blast furnace complex, not to mention the hundreds that would be needed to continue construction of the adjacent mills along the Ohio River.

But, how would the company reach the oppressed in the South, the forgotten in the ghettos and the desperate in the heartland? How would they inform them of the new American Dream taking shape in Woodlawn, Pennsylvania? In an age before communication became instant, this would require some innovative methods.

'Woodlawn on the Ohio'

By spring 1912, the new Aliquippa Works of J&L Steel was humming. Three blast furnaces were operating 24/7, along with the tinplate, rod-iron, nail, open-hearth and blooming mills. A fourth blast furnace and the Bessemer Converter were under construction and scheduled to open in August. An influx of workers wasnt just needed; it was essential to the continued growth of the complex.

On the town side, the Woodlawn Land Co. had completed more than 1,500 houses in Plans 1, 2, 3, 6, 7, 9, 11 and 12. Plan 8, also known as Orchard Plan, was nearing completion. On Temple and Oliver streets in Plan 12, 16 brick blocks of homes that would come to be known as "The Bricks" were almost finished. Each house in Woodlawn was equipped with a bath, hot/cold water, natural gas heating, electric lighting, porches, attics, basements and large lawns that no other steel town could match. Workers could move their families in on Day One and their mortgage payments would be automatically deducted from their weekly pay envelopes.

From a civic standpoint, the borough of Woodlawn now possessed all of the modern amenities of a progressive industrial city. It had two schools Logstown and Highland with a third, the towns first high school, under construction. This building would later be known as Franklin School. Laughlin and Jones Schools would not be built for a few more years.

Construction of the Woodlawn & Southern Street Railway began in 1912, the boroughs first public transportation system. A fire department was begun in 1909, later joined by a police department, water company and street department. The new $30,000 municipal building was dedicated on March 8, 1911. Streets were paved with macadam and lined with newly planted trees to add elegance.

Along Franklin Avenue, the town had a quickly developing downtown. Two hotels, the Franklin and the National European, welcomed newcomers to Woodlawn. The Woodlawn Trust Company, the towns first bank, opened in 1910. The bank building also hosted the boroughs first U.S. Post Office. All of downtown was built around the massive five-story Pittsburgh Mercantile Co. building, the "company store" that served steelworkers and their families on a credit system. Shoppers came for the company store, but stayed for the food, drinks and excitement along "The Avenue."

The Pittsburgh & Lake Erie Railroad was very influential in Woodlawn. In 1909, the railroad began construction of a new passenger station and freight depot, both of which stand to this day. Rail was also the main transportation for prospective residents to get a glimpse of Woodlawn. The railroad offered free daily rides from Pittsburgh.

The Woodlawn Land Co. knew that it would need more than Pittsburgh connections to bring the number of workers J&L needed. In March 1912, a free 14-page picture booklet was published to show the world what Woodlawn had to offer. These booklets, titled "Woodlawn on the Ohio," were carried by the P&LE Railroad and its partner lines and made available at every station along their routes. The land company also took out ads in newspapers around the country, even as far away as California. Soon, a steady stream of people was showing up daily at the Woodlawn passenger station.

Immigrants Chasing the Dream

The "Woodlawn on the Ohio" booklets were a smash hit. People not only took them for their own purposes, they also sent them back to the Old Country for their friends and relatives. The opportunity to find a good-paying job, a new house, and a real ground-floor community was an incredible lure. By late 1913, Woodlawn had become one of the key destinations for new arrivals at Ellis Island. It was a true land of opportunity, and the P&LE Railroad was its gatekeeper.

In 1912, the railroad took an unconventional step to ensure it could handle the rush of immigrants. For the first time, the company employed bilingual agents at its Woodlawn station. Whether you spoke French, Italian, Spanish, Russian, Greek, Portuguese, German, Hebrew or Croatian, there would be an agent waiting to help you find your way.

Upon arriving at Woodlawn, most immigrants began looking for the plan of homes nearest to their fellow countrymen. They wanted to be around those who spoke their language and shared their customs. As the plans filled, each one began to develop its own unique ethnic feel. Plan 4, for instance, was home to many Greek immigrants. The Greek Orthodox Church was located there, as were several Greek grocers. This same trend occurred in nearly every plan. Woodlawn was a segregated community, but it was an organically segregated community.

Revisionist history has always claimed that J&L Steel purposely segregated the town to create divisions among the workforce. This was not true, even if the end result did resemble as such. The segregation of Woodlawns plans was done by its own residents out of their own desires and needs. J&L Steel did have two plans that were not open to just anyone, however. Plan 6 was reserved for mill bosses, foremen and superintendents. It was a closed community for the steel companys elite. Plan 12 was reserved for English-speaking workers, regardless if they were naturally born Americans or recent arrivals.

As time went on, many began to look at Woodlawn as the quintessential example of a "melting pot." This was defined as a place where many different cultures slowly "melted" into one Americanized culture through the process of forced assimilation. This also wasnt entirely true. Most immigrants went out of their way to assimilate voluntarily, but it wasnt at the expense of their own ethnic heritages. Woodlawns different nationalities created vibrant community clubs, church organizations, orchestras and sports leagues.Each nationality also brought its own celebrations to Woodlawn, a tradition that lives on through the annual San Rocco Festa each summer.

By 1920, Woodlawn had a foreign-born population of more than 5,000. The largest contingent of immigrants had arrived from Yugoslavia, followed by Italy, Greece, Austria, and Poland. In the interest of civic participation, the Woodlawn School District began offering free English language classes for workers and their families in October 1912.This was an early example of how the town welcomed new arrivals and expected them to contribute to the overall community.

Period of Rapid Growth

While Woodlawn was coming into its own, its northern neighbor also was taking great strides. Aliquippa, todays West Aliquippa, was home to more than 2,000 people in 1914. Another major employer, Kidd Drawn Steel, arrived that year to add even more jobs to the local mix. Aliquippa had a full contingent of borough services, including its own fire department, police department and school system.

Back in Woodlawn, J&L Steel was still growing.A fifth blast furnace went online in 1918, and the company entered the tubular products field with the construction of two buttweld mills and a lapweld mill. The Woodlawn Land Co. was still completing homes at a staggering rate of one per day to meet the demand of the steel firms workforce.

Woodlawn also saw a number of churches founded during this period, starting with St. Titus Roman Catholic Church in 1910. That was followed by the First Methodist Church and First United Presbyterian Church later that year. In 1912, St. Elijah Serbian Orthodox Church was founded in Logstown to serve a growing Eastern European population, and House of Prayer Lutheran Church was built on Sheffield Avenue. SS. Peter and Paul Ukrainian Catholic Church (1912), Triedstone Baptist Church (1915), All Saints Episcopal Church (1915), Emmanuel AME Church (1916), Assumption Greek Orthodox Church (1917), St. Nicholas Russian Orthodox Church (1917), and Agudath Achim Synagogue (1919) rounded out the new congregations around the steel town.

During World War I, the Aliquippa Works operated at more than double capacity, with anywhere from 7,000 to 8,000 workers toiling in the mills at any given time. Woodlawn quickly gained a reputation as one of Americas greatest production towns.

The Roaring Twenties

Woodlawn came out of wartime production as a town of more than 20,000. Just a decade prior, the valley of Logstown Run had been a quiet, wooded place. Now, it buzzed with the sounds of commerce and community around the clock.

As the original plans began to fill up, new developments were started. The McDonald-Short Plan, McDonald Heights and the Hall Plan ("Hollywood") all began construction in 1923. In Aliquippa borough, the P&LE Railroad constructed a series of homes for its employees that reached to the Woodlawn border. The two boroughs were quickly growing closer together.

For recreational purposes, J&L built a large community swimming pool adjacent to its main office building. A new community library, B.F. Jones Memorial, was planned in 1927 and completed in 1929. A gift from the daughter of J&L Steel founder Benjamin Franklin Jones, the library continues to serve the community to this day.

With an endlessly growing population came the need for a modern high school. Land in Plan 12 was donated by J&L Steel and construction began in late 1923. When it opened in 1925, Harding High School named for recently deceased President Warren G. Harding was considered the finest in the state.

As the 1920s dwindled, it became clear that Woodlawn had grown to its boundaries on all sides. With J&L Steel continuing to expand the Aliquippa Works, the community had to do the same. In 1927, officials from both Woodlawn and Aliquippa met to discuss a bold move that would change the local landscape forever.

The Consolidation

Aliquippa was founded nearly two decades prior to Woodlawn, but by 1915 it was the clear number two locally. Woodlawn was a modern community in every sense of the word and was praised across the country as the ideal industrial town. Meanwhile, Aliquippa had become hemmed in on all sides by the Ohio River, P&LE Railroad freight yard and the Aliquippa Works. It was isolated and unable to move forward due to a lack of available land.

In 1927, the idea of a consolidation between the two boroughs was floated at a Woodlawn council meeting. Most Aliquippa residents were against the idea, as they were fiercely loyal to their hometown and could foresee it getting the raw end of any potential deal. However, the power of Woodlawn and J&L Steel pushed the notion until it was finally brought up for a vote.

On Jan. 24, 1928, residents of both towns took to the polls to decide on consolidation.The result was never in question, passing by more than 3,000 votes.While it was the original Aliquippa borough that would be divested of its identity, the name Woodlawn was the one that would disappear forever. Officials decided to take the Aliquippa name for the merged community, due to its historic nature and notoriety as the name of J&L Steels mills, the Aliquippa Works.

Old Aliquippa borough would become known as West Aliquippa. Although the P&LERailroad tracks ran north to south through Beaver County, the line in general was an east-west one. Because the former Aliquippa was the next station after the new Aliquippa heading west on the railroad, it was given the name West Aliquippa.

One more step was taken to create this new, larger borough. Neighboring Hopewell Township was pillaged for a large chunk of its land, including New Sheffield and what is now the area of Kennedy Boulevard. This annexation added another 5,000 acres to Aliquippa borough and gave the town room for future expansion. On Jan. 28, 1928, the official consolidation was put to paper. Modern Aliquippa had been born.

Twenty-two years

It had been just 22 years since P.M. Moore deboarded his train at Woodlawn and became the first Jones & Laughlin Steel employee to call the tiny farming village home.Now, the Borough of Aliquippa had emerged from its fiery beginnings to become a true slice of the American Dream. It was home to people from around the world, a place with community pride and a legendary blue-collar work ethic crafted in the fiery ovens of the mills. Over the next 90 years, Aliquippa would see its share of ups and downs, but its beginnings are a story that can never be taken away.

The story of Aliquippa really is the story of America.

Jeffrey Snedden is a local researcher and historian. Questions, comments or topic ideas for Histories & Mysteries may be emailed to historiesandmysteries@yahoo.com. Every other week, Snedden will choose a few new topics and update past ones with readers notes and questions.

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Histories & Mysteries: Aliquippa emerges from its fiery beginnings to represent the American Dream - The Times