Did you know?
This had almost slipped my mind.
It was 50 years ago this week that I found myself incapacitated, suffering from an injury caused by a massive explosion at Uniontown High School.
I had to be rushed to Uniontown Hospital, where I, and as many as 100 of my fellow students, was administered emergency treatments by caring hospital staff members and representatives from the American Red Cross.
That was, of course, something they called the “Disaster Alert Program,” conducted by Civil Defense and Uniontown Hospital personnel.
According the article on the front page of the May 20, 1963, edition of the Uniontown Evening Standard, the “Hospital CD Alert Test Is Successful,” (despite, I guess, my small contributions to it).
The exercise had included: 36 doctors, 52 graduate nurses, 39 nurses aides, 14 orderlies, 14 clerks, eight operating room technicians, 79 student nurses, 37 Gray Ladies and 40 auxiliary hospital volunteers.
And, to add a sense of reality, there were people who were assigned as “gate crashers” and others who tried to jam telephone lines.
It was 120 years ago this week that Thomas G. Allen of St. Louis County, Mo., and Don L. Sachtlebeau of Alton, Ill., reached Uniontown on their “Around the World” bicycle tour.
The pair had embarked on a three-year journey on their bikes, and they’d made their stop in Uniontown “bronzed by travel and enjoying good health.”
That couldn’t be said for their bikes. According the front-page story published in the May 24, 1893, edition of Uniontown’s Evening News, “their wheels showed evidence of rough treatment and were marked by the rough roads of their long journey.”
After they’d dined at the Lafayette Hotel, they were off again and heading to New York City, with hopes of reaching there by June.
Shady Grove Park was in the news 100 years ago this week.
The May 21, 1913, edition of the Uniontown Morning Herald carried a front page item about the anticipated reopening of the park for the summer season.
Arrangements were being made to help the “park look prettier and more inviting than ever before,” it was reported.
Shady Grove was set to reopen in a week, with the schools of Uniontown holding their big annual picnic the following day.
On the subject of schools ending, I found an interesting article about a “unique” commencement ceremony that was about to take place 75 years ago this week in Uniontown.
Instead of Uniontown High School’s usual graduation exercises, in which there would be a speaking program, 100 graduates would take part in a “colorful pageant” at the State Theatre.
According to the May 21, 1938, edition of the Morning Herald, students were going to act out historical vignettes under a single theme: “Peace – Honorable Peace,” in which (curiously) there would be depictions of “various phases of wars since the time of the Crusades — religious wars — down to the World War.”
At the time, the teachers and school administrators didn’t realize just how “unique” that format would become, since I haven’t found any other year when it was used.
That story about Uniontown High’s commencement shared the front page with a rather peculiar bit of local news.
“Famous Parrot Passes Away,” was the headline atop a story about “Old Polly,” a 15 year-old parrot and resident of Jefferson Street that had recently met its demise.
“Old Polly” had apparently enjoyed some kind of local notoriety (which wasn’t discernable by the details that accompanied the article).
But to calm the anxieties of “Old Polly’s” fans, it was assured that she’d “passed away peacefully.”
The article DID NOT contain, however, the bird’s final words.
A few days later, on May 25, 1938, it was reported that it had been 100 years to the day that the National Pike had officially received authorization through the U.S. Congress.
Commemorating the beginnings of one of the most important roadways in the nation’s history was quite appropriate.
However, the first paragraph of that 1938 article is a head-scratcher.
“Few motorists who ride along Route 40 will recall that just a hundred years ago today the Congress of the United States, by an act of legislation, made possible the route that is now one of the most traveled highways in the nation,” it said.
Taken literally, chances are if anybody was aware of (or interested in) that Congressional action in 1838, they would have been at least 10 years old.
I truly doubt that there were any 110-year-old “motorists” who read that 1938 story.