Did you know
On this date 50 years ago, most of Uniontown was excited about the proceedings that took place at the Pittsburgh Civic Arena the night before.
“Everhart Relaxes — After UHS Wins Title,” read the front-page headline below the large picture of a sign being held-up that read “GO RAIDERS.”
Uniontown’s undefeated Red Raider basketball team had beaten the highly talented Midland High team 46-43 to win its second WPIAL championship in three years. The Red Raiders would remain undefeated and win its second PIAA Class A championship in three years later that month.
Back in the middle of March in 1942, there were two sports stories of local interest to sports fans.
“Former Uniontown Boxer Instructor at Naval Depot,” read the headline above a picture of Uniontown’s Johnny Bell, who’d fought professionally for 350 fights under the name Johnny Donnelly between 1920 and 1925. Bell was taking part in the U.S. Navy’s physical fitness program at the Naval Air Station in Pensacola, Fla. He was pictured with another boxer of note — James “Gene” Tunney, the former undefeated heavyweight champion of the world, who had accepted a commission as a lieutenant commander and would set up a physical fitness program for the Navy.
Three days later, on March 13, 1942, there was another picture of a local athlete who had joined the war effort.
“GOODBYE AND GOOD LUCK, PAT,” said the headline above a picture of Trotter’s Pat Mullin and his wife.
Pat Mullin had played outfield for the Detroit Tigers during the 1941-42 seasons. After WWII broke-out, though, he volunteered for military service. He was shown at the Uniontown bus terminal, heading to Pittsburgh to take his physical examination for the U.S. Army. He would spend four years in the military before returning to play for the Tigers until his retirement in September of 1953.
A hundred years ago this month, the Uniontown Morning Herald reported there was a growing problem in Dunbar.
“Many fights cause stir in ‘copless’ town,” read the headline on the front page of the Morning Herald’s March 18, 1914, edition.
It seems that the council of Dunbar Borough had decided that the cost of having a single on-duty police officer wasn’t a good investment. So a decision was made that, “Some time ago removing one policeman in the borough on the grounds that he was an added expense and that Dunbar needed no police protection.
Soon “rowdies” began taking over the streets at night. It was reported that, “This evening a gang of perhaps ten or fifteen men took possession of main street and marched from end to end, singing, yelling and fighting.” The street toughs had apparently kept the town awake “nearly all of the night.” There were enough people “aroused over the conditions,” it was reported, that there would probably be a petition forthcoming to reinstate the (one-man) police force.
Meanwhile, on that same front page, there was a report (although humorously written) about a strange new fad that had become all the rage among Uniontown High School’s female students. Some of the young ladies had tried to remove freckles from their faces. Apparently when that didn’t work, they decided to cover their freckles by transforming them into “beauty spots.”
“Hundreds of these tiny little bits of black courtplaster (a practice that had been first recorded in 1772) appeared on the faces of Uniontown young women yesterday. They were much more prominent than the ‘teeny’ little brown freckles would have been, but a person catching a glimpse of the ‘beauty spot’ supposed at once that it was just a new fad,” the report said in part.
From time-to-time I’ll come across an old newspaper ad that catches my attention. The Uniontown Evening Standard on this date 124 years ago carried one ad that gave me an indication of just how far medical science has advanced over the years. Nowadays, more health remedies are designed to treat specific ailments. That wasn’t the case in 1890.
Dr. Schenck’s “Mandrake Pills” were made to “Cure Indigestion, Sour Stomach, Heartburn, Flatulency, Colic, and all Diseases of the Stomach; Costiveness, Inflammation, Diarrhea, Piles, and Diseases of the Bowels; Congestion, Biliousness, Jaundice, Nausea, Headache, Giddiness, Nervousness, Wandering Pains, Malaria, Liver Complaint, and all Diseases arising from a Gorged and Sluggish Liver.” Not only those things, but “They clean the mucous coats, reduce gorged or congested conditions, break up stubborn complications, restore free, healthy action to the organs, and give the system a chance to recover tone and strength.”