THE HISTORY OF SMITHTON, PENNSYLVANIA FROM 1800 TO 1950
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The early 1900’s bustled with activity and industry. Three Hotels were kept busy, not only in the bars but in the dining rooms and guest rooms as well. Two livery stables flourished, and more freight was unloaded at Smithton than at any other point between Connellsville and McKeesport. Surprise Flour from the mill of Smith, Hough and Company, Eureka Beer, Pringle’s pop and ice cream, and Raithel’s Bread and Ice Cream were shipped by train up and down the valley. Price and Butler’s Stock Company came regularly every year. They stayed a week, and put their shows on nightly in the Friendship Hall. In all this hustle and bustle of industry and growth, civic improvements were neglected. Wagons or cars struggled through dust or mud, hub deep. Sewage washed down open ditches along both sides of every street. A layer of dust, and coal smoke from the coke ovens blackened buildings, trees, flowers and shrubs. As coke making and business declined locally, the citizens began to think in terms of civic beauty, better streets, and sanitation. Improvement was gradual but steady. The paved street through from the bridge toward Scottdale was laid in 1901. Given great impetus by the Civic Works Administration and the Works Progress Administration during the recovery program following the economic depression of the early thirties, streets were resurfaced, sewers laid, and Smithton emerged from the Depression a neat village of well kept residences, with the nicest streets of any town its size in this or any other state. A municipal water works pumps water from the river, filters and chemically purifies it. At this writing the system now in use is not adequate to meet the growing needs of the community, nor the requirements for public safety, and it has been necessary to institute a Water Authority whose purpose is to sell bonds to build a new water works. As yet this is only in the planning stage. The greater part of the civic improvement program carried to completion during the 1930’s was done under the supervision of Frank Wagner, the borough engineer. Boys from Smithton have served in all branches of the service in two World Wars. The Honor Roll bearing 87 names of young men who served in World War I was for many years beside the Lutheran Church at the corner of Second and Peer Streets. Following World War II it was moved to a plot of ground purchased by the Lions Club, and placed beside the new Honor Roll that bears the names of about 256 local boys who served in World War II. A history of Smithton would not be complete without some mention of the fine contributions to civic betterment made by the Lions Club. Organized in 1939, this club’s fine service to the youth of the community in many ways, has been outstanding. Space does not permit an enumeration of all the things this group has done.
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