Did you know?
I found a strange local story that appeared in the July 23, 1953, edition of the Uniontown Evening Standard.
“Girl mauled in local store,” was the headline for a story about Terry Denim, who found herself having a harrowing experience at the Kaybee Store on West Main Street in Uniontown.
Denim gave a full account of what had happened. “It all happened a few days ago. When I reported for work the manager approached me with a strange look in his eye and he informed me that it would be my duty to open the store that day for the start of the semi-annual clearance sale,” she said.
“A tremendous crowd had gathered outside the store, clamoring to get in. I unlocked the door and was immediately knocked down and trampled by the surging crowd,” she lamented.
The article went on to say that Denim had been knocked unconscious and removed to her home.
Of course, there really had been no mauling at the hands of overeager shoppers, trampling salesgirls to get their hands on reduced price merchandise.
The entire article concluded with the abbreviated single word “Adv.”
It was a well-conceived, well-placed advertisement, conjured up by that local Kaybee Store. One of many, similar “articles” I’ve found over the years, with nicely worded “testimonials” of local residents.
That one certainly fooled me.
On Aug. 26th, 1893, 110 years ago this month, the Uniontown Evening News carried the front-page story about a man from Hoke County, Neb., who was travelling 1,500 miles, just to “see the country.”
His trip probably wouldn’t have been newsworthy, except for the method he used. He was “driving a team, consisting of a dilapidated spring wagon, a mule and a horse, neither of which had a shoe on them,” when he reached Connellsville, it was reported.
It was also reported that C.D. Sando was “in good spirits and talked of many sights he had seen. He stayed over night and left early this morning for Gettysburg.”
Long before the Internet, email and texting, there were only a few ways to convey highly important messages with immediacy.
That was the case back in August of 1943.
While the United States was fighting wars on two continents, there was a definite need to lure men to battle.
“Airplanes Drop Leaflets,” said the article on the front page of the Evening Standard that day.
“Leaflets explaining the opportunities which will be given to any young man enlisting in the Air Corps (the forerunner to the United States Air Force) were to be dropped from airplanes all over the county this afternoon,” it was reported.
A recruiting drive had been launched that month by the Civil Air Patrol Squadron 65-6 Pa. of Uniontown, that was designed to attract young recruits over the age of 18.
The leaflet drop was considered the best way to contact as many potential recruits as possible.
During WWII, there were many other sacrifices being asked of the general public.
One of those things was called the “blackout.”
Local Civil Defense officials wanted local residents and business owners to prepare for possible air raids by enemy forces, so they would set up nighttime exercises, in which everybody turned out their lights.
The blackout the previous night went smoothly, but for a few people who failed to get the message.
“Action Against Violators Of Blackout Considered,” said the front-page headline.
Mayor Russell E. Umbel reported that most of the violations took place in downtown Uniontown, where more than a dozen business owners failed to go along with the blackout.
It was also reported that a farmer near Footedale had “kept his lights burning in his house, barn and his outbuildings throughout the test.”
One warden actually broke into a house on Arch Street “to extinguish lights which had been left burning.”
Those blackouts, by the way, continued through WWII, and into the 1950s, during the Cold War.
Also during the 1950’s, there was a crackdown on “traffic noise” in the city of Uniontown.
According to a story that appeared on the front page of the Aug. 6, 1951 edition of the Evening Standard, “Police Continue on Warpath To Halt Unnecessary Traffic Noises.”
It was reported that three arrests had been made over the weekend of drivers who decided to use their car horns for purposes other than to “warn another pedestrians or motorists of danger.”
Police Chief Alfred W. Davis also claimed, “That includes wedding processions and people who blow their horns to signal their riders early in the morning, waking up the whole neighborhood.”
It seems like that crackdown didn’t last.
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