Did you know?
A hundred years ago this month, when automobiles were still as much of a curiosity as they were a trusty means of transportation, the mere mention of having licenses and registrations in order to drive them, caused a public stir.
There was a story on the front page of the Jan. 5, 1913 edition of the Uniontown Morning Herald about a local doctor who was quite displeased about Uniontown’s burgess instituting fines for local motorists who drove cars without having 1913 licenses.
The doctor told the Herald that he’d been summoned to the home of a young woman who had suffered from heart failure. However,聽 he couldn’t drive his own car, because he hadn’t gotten the appropriate license for it.
Instead of facing the possibility of getting a $10 to $25 fine, the doctor had to wait for a taxicab to arrive so that he could rush to the ailing woman’s aid.
The extended wait nearly cost the woman’s life.
The doctor made his displeasure known at the newspaper office after he made his lifesaving house call.
“If the burgess enforces other ordinances as rigidly as he seems to be enforcing this particular one there would be quite a few improvements noticeable in Uniontown,” the irate doctor opined.
Wouldn’t that doctor be shocked to discover that a hundred years later, not only must cars have licenses, but drivers have to have them too?
The following week, on the front page of the Jan. 10, 1913 edition of the Morning Herald, there was a complaint about a local problem in Uniontown, that still seems mighty familiar today.
“Residents are indignant at conditions,” was the headline atop a story about the complaints from homeowners on Iowa and Fayette streets in Uniontown, who had enough of the flooding waters of Redstone Creek finding their way into their cellars.
According to the story, the four sewers that emptied into the creek were just part of the problem. “It is said that persons carry bundles of refuse, old clothes, tin cans, garbage and cast off articles to the bridge and toss them into the creek,” it was reported.
The problem had gotten so serious that one multi-homeowner was thinking about raising three of the houses that he owned four feet to “relieve himself of the inconvenience and damage to his cellars.”
Beside that front page story, it was reported that Connellsville was fresh out of police officers – at least temporarily.
“Connellsville cops are suspended by police committee,” the headline said.
It was reported that all six of Connellsville’s officers had been rebuffed when they requested pay raises. They decided that they’d give the borough 24 hours to raise their salaries, or “Connellsville would be without police protection, at least for a time at least,” it was reported.
However, the police committee acted first, suspending all of the officers.
Connellsville would be without any police officers on the street until the next morning, when five members of the Pennsylvania State Police would arrive from Greensburg.
A few days later, on Jan. 15, 1913, the Morning Herald reported that Uniontown was about to get a visit from a matinee idol.
Francis X. Bushman, one of filmdom’s earliest mega-stars was about to make an appearance at the Lyric Theatre in Uniontown.
“Mr. Bushman has been secured at a great expense by the manager of the Lyric to appear in person to meet the patrons of this theatre, and the public in general,” said the ad on the front page of the Morning Herald.
Two of Bushman’s films, “When Soul Meets Soul,” and “The Magic Wand,” were part of the Lyric Theatre fare that day.
It was also reported that he would be entertained at dinner at the Elks Club, by some of his admirers.
While Bushman enjoyed universal fame throughout the silent film era, his career faltered with the advent of sound.
However, if you’re familiar with Grauman’s Chinese Theater in Hollywood, it was Francis X. Bushman who once owned the house and the land on which that Hollywood landmark was built.
Ten years later, on Jan. 12, 1923, it was reported on the front page of the Uniontown Daily News Standard, that Connellsville’s residents had been awakened by a “succession of bombs” during the previous night.
It was suspected that the explosions were set-off by white-robed members of the Ku Klux Klan, who had been spotted milling around a hillside where there had been a “huge burning cross.”
On that same front page, there was a report of a much more distinguished visitor who was coming to Fayette County.
Former presidential candidate; ex-U.S. Secretary of State and future attorney in the trial known as the Scopes Monkey trial – William Jennings Bryan – would be making his fifth (and final) visit to Fayette County that evening.
He was quoted the next day as having commented on the possible presidential aspirations of automobile inventor Henry Ford, and newspaper magnate William Randolph Hearst.
“If this would be the case,” he remarked, “we would have the presentment of two very rich men contesting for the nation’s highest office.”
That, too, seems very familiar.
Al Owens is a native of Uniontown.