Responses aplenty for latest mystery
This view of West Chestnut Street, looking east toward Washington, was photographed before the B&O Railroad trestle was constructed over the road.
The section of West Chestnut Street as it appears today.
We had a good idea this week’s Mystery Photo was taken somewhere in the Washington area, but exactly where we couldn’t tell. We received several dozen phone calls and email messages from our readers eager to set us straight.
Although a couple of folks thought the scene might be closer to Canonsburg or Heidelberg, pretty much everyone else was divided into two camps: Jefferson Avenue near the Brownson House, or West Chestnut Street. By the middle of last week, West Chestnut was getting the most votes, and those people were correct.
”The B&O railroad used to cross Chestnut/Route 40 at grade,” wrote Rich Giecek of South Fayette Township. “The road was excavated and dug out in the 1930s for an underpass/trestle after lobbying the railroad in response to several deadly crossing accidents. The streetcar tracks went around the bend paralleling the railroad and then behind the Hazel Atlas glass house, to the end the East-West line at Caldwell Avenue.”
John Loughman of West Finley Township agreed. “Ross Independent had its store just past the gas station, which now is a medical supply store,” Loughman wrote. “The streetcar used to go past where Coen Oil and Tire now is. I’m sure I remember in the ’40s and ’50s the streetcar running on the side of the street.”
Others had a different opinion. “It looks like Jefferson Avenue looking east toward the Brownson House,” wrote Bruce P. Wells, a volunteer at Pennsylvania Trolley Museum for 50 years. “It is approximately where the Jefferson and Maiden car terminated on the Tylerdale side of town. The rise in the road took Jefferson Avenue over the Pennsylvania Railroad. This is where the interurban car line left the street and proceeded to the Tylerdale car house and then on to Meadow Lands, Houston, Canonsburg and ultimately Pittsburgh.”
The photo may look like that end of town, but it’s not. There are several smoking guns to prove it was taken on West Chestnut Street.
First of those clues is the Forest Inn. We found it listed in the City Directory editions of the late 1920s and early 1930s. It was then operated by Jewell Tucker. The address places it about where Coen Tire Co. is now. Ross Independent Oil Co. became Coen Oil Co. in the 1930s, and Coen is in the same location today.
The second clincher is the brick building on the right of the photo, on the other side of the railroad tracks. It is still there and was once the far end of the National Annealing Box Co. plant. Part of that old factory is now occupied by Famous Supply.
We were unable to answer all the calls we received, but we thank all of our readers who responded and helped us solve this puzzle.
Look for another Mystery Photo in next Monday’s Observer-Reporter.