Feb 15, 2014 4 min read

A look at some of the headlines gracing the pages of the Observer-Reporter and Waynesburg Republican this week in Greene County history:

Warden: County jail prisoners logged 8,520 hours of community service in 2008

WAYNESBURG – Greene County Jail inmates may have spent most of their time behind bars last year, but they also devoted numerous hours to refurbishing churches and township buildings.

Fifty-eight inmates participated in the jail’s community service program at some point during the year. They combined to work 8,520 hours performing a variety of carpentry, landscaping and other tasks for municipalities and charities in Greene County.

Harry Gillispie, warden at the jail, presented a summary of the community service program’s activities at the prison board meeting Wednesday.

“There’s a truckload of money that you were able to save the municipalities and some of the churches,” he told the board. “We never have a problem finding work for these guys. There’s always something going on.”

The inmates helped renovate the Center Township fire hall, removed trash from illegal dumps in the Clarksville and Morris Township areas and helped build new municipal or maintenance buildings in Washington Township, Waynesburg Borough and Perry Township. They also cleared brush from several cemeteries, parks and churches and performed numerous other tasks.

SPC lobbies for funding for Masontown Bridge

WAYNESBURG – A $58 million project to replace the bridge that connects Greene to Fayette County recently earned the backing of the region’s planning organization.

At a meeting earlier this month, the Southwestern Pennsylvania Commission (SPC) included the Masontown Bridge replacement on its list of suggested projects for the state Department of Transportation’s 2005-08 Transportation Improvement Program. Greene County Commissioner Dave Coder serves as SPC chairman.

“Because of safety, the power plants, infrastructure … that bridge really needs to be replaced,” said Coder.

The two-lane bridge on Route 21 has been slated for replacement because of its narrow lanes and the age of the span. Constructed in 1925, the bridge is 24 feet wide, with no shoulder.

PENNDOT wants to replace the 79-year-old structure, and is in the preliminary engineering stage to do so, but that doesn’t mean the project will receive funding through the statewide Transportation Improvement Program.

25 years ago: Feb. 16-22, 1989

Courthouse renovations too costly

WAYNESBURG – The Greene County commissioners have deferred action on a courthouse renovation study until they have a better idea of whether the county can afford to make the improvements it would recommend.

At the request of the commissioners, Widmer Engineering of Beaver Falls presented a proposal at last week’ board meeting to make the study at a cost of $40,000.

It would have included a complete analysis of what needs to be done to modernize the front part of the courthouse, which was built in 1815, and to renovate or replace the addition built at the rear in 1896 to house the county jail and sheriff’s house.

Much of the addition has been vacant since 1980.

County births on upswing claim health department

Greene County births in the first six months of 1968 were on the upswing as compared with the same period a year earlier.

A report by the State Department of Health shows that the number of births in Greene County during the six-month period totaled 218 as compared with 184 births in the county a year earlier at the same rate.

The birth rate for the county during the six-month period stood at 11.1 per 1,000 population – up from a rate of 9.2 in 1967.

Deaths on the other hand dropped from 236 during the six-month period in 1967 to 231 for 1968, bringing the death rate for the county to 11.7 per 1,000 population as compare with 11.8 in 1967.

Leading cause of death in the county continues to be heart disease, which during the January-June period took the lives of 106 Greene County residents (121) lives for the same period a year earlier).