The Morganza Reformatory School for Boys a place you never wanted to be sent as a incorrigible boy

It loomed like a scary old Transylvanian  castle  over Morganza Road and I -79 in Washington County Pa for many years until it was ultimately torn down . But it was a place no child ever wanted sent . The Morganza Reform School for Incorrigible Children .

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BNo4Hk0lfHw

http://www.ceciltwphistoricalsociety.org/Morganza.html

When you committed a crime as a juvenile and it was deemed wrong enough to need reforming you where sent to this Reform School with a reputation for abusing its inmates .
with various punishments including beatings,starvings, and shackling
a former staffer has even written a book about his experiences there while working

https://www.amazon.com/Morganza-1967-Legendary-Reform-School/dp/0826346413

I heard many a story growing up as a young child in the 60s about this place it was used by parents to scare you if you screwed up you would be sent there .
Eventually it was turned into Western Center in 70's which took care of mentally ill children until it closed in the 90s
and was torn down to make way for modern office complex now known as Southpointe

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_Center

I was at Morganza Administration Building on its last day for  the hearings set to testify in favor of
keeping the center open when a last minute deal was worked out to move the patients to group homes instead. Which I feel was a bad mistake they where way better taken care of at western Center.

While I wast here they gave a short tour of place and one of the staff showed a room from the old Morganza Reform days  which looked like a cell in medieval torture chamber where he said beatings happened when they failed to follow the rules.

Strange Wedding night traditions during the Depression Era in Pittsburgh

Yes During the Depression when a young couple would get married honeymoon options where few as most could not afford them this often meant staying the wedding night at some ones home  and with this started many fun and weird wedding night traditions . In some cases the young couples location would be discovered and neighbors would stand outside and party and make noises etc to disturb the couples love making and in turn the young couple would heat penny's on the stove and throw them into the crowd to disperse them and it was said it was good luck to get hit and catch one of them.
  night
Other times they would show up and keep the bride and groom up all night partying to prevent wedding night nuptials.

All meant in fun  of course many brides did not appreciate it .

But when moneys short and options few things like this are what happened around the tri-state

As you travel out I-279 North thru the Northside and pass the old KDKA TV tower it looks like it was never finished but at one time it actually was?

Yes the tower looks like it was never finished with its big bright white ball that says KDKA on it as you go out I -279 East Street Valley Expressway also known as Parkway North. but at one time it actually was a completed 500 foot free standing tower.

 That was until a terrific wind storm came by in 1955 and blew the tower over and it was  left with just the bottom base in place after it was cleaned up.
The reason most people do not remember it getting knocked over is because no one got hurt or killed and not much damage other than the tower occurred.
 

https://www.fybush.com/sites/2010/site-100319.html

We have been very lucky when it comes to towers staying in place and not being damaged however at least twice some one deliberately cut the guy wires and destroyed the towers of WAMO in Reserve Township. But all in all Pittsburgh has an excellent record for how they build and maintain towers. 

An Older Couple in a Home covered with Strange Illuminati Markings in E. Carnegie. The home is gone . .Where are they now ?

I would have never known this home ever existed at Alter St and Bert Way had I not been called to do some work at a nearby personnel care home.in E. Carnegie a part of the city of Pittsburgh that borders Scott Twp. and Carnegie.Boro 

In the end of  alleyway behind the care home was a simple white clapboarded house with a yard filled with debris and an older white couple who where sorting it. . But what seemed to be a hoarding situation had a strange twist the home was covered with all kind of strange Illuminati and  Free Mason type symbols the all seeing eye, the masons compass , the pagan pentacle  etc .
The home did not appear to have utility's possibly just electric as they used wood to heat and they where hauling in jugs of water. 
Rather strange I thought till one day the couple saw the Personnel Care home had a pile of  walkers and other scrap metal outside and the couple asked if they could take it the owner agreed and I got to talk to them for a few minutes never learned their names but they said they where on disability and scrapping by where they could  by picking up scrap metal and such for recycling they had an old ford pickup failing apart they held together with tape and bailing wire literately.

Thats when I asked them about the symbols on their house and they started telling me all about how government was suppressing us all how they where being assaulted by radio beams ,fluoride in the water etc. Yes you name it they where full conspiracy believers even gave me some CD Disks I still have on all kind of conspiracy's.  ,but they where harmless and never ever bothered anyone but had made their home a Bill Board of their beliefs.

Apparently the City had enough and I came by to do work at the Personnel care home and the yard was cleaned up and home freshly painted and up for rent  and 6 months later it had been torn down now just an empty lot which I thought strange why bother cleaning it up if your going to tear t down but it must have been too bad a shape for any home flipper to want it. All there is now is an empty lot and some trees you would never know such a home and the couple who lived there ever existed.

The Thunder Bird Boatel an old show boat that sat along the Allegheny river in Ohara twp pa. which had a notoroius ending.

There is nothing now but a couple pilings along the Allegheny River where the Thunderbird  Boatel once sat.
along River Road in O

hara Twp. at an angle across from the Oakmont Yacht Club  a big white old fashioned side wheeler it sat along River Road for several decades and hosted numerous musical acts
as well as  dinner party's and events .

But with the loss of a newer generation not wanting to dress up and go to a show and dinner  the Boatel ended up closing  in 1967and sitting empty for many years  till it became a notorious private  gay bondage club apparently  when it was raided by the Allegheny County Police for under age drinking and sealed its fate never to open again. I remember the headlines flashing across KDKA late evening news many people where shocked at the time in late 70s when the raid took place. Eventually in early80's it was towed down river and as far as  I can determine and
was scrapped.  Its hard to find anything online about the boatel and of course memory's are fading as well.

Aerial view of the Thunderbird Boatel  next to water treatment plant

 

With its notorious past its not hard understanding why . Apparently not everyone was a fan of it sitting there as several neighbors complained to Ohara twp about noise from party's and lack of parking .

Unfortunately its another piece of lost history in the Pittsburgh region and for some people good reason  one of those what happens in Vegas stayed in Vegas situations. 

 

Yes there actually was a Transylvania Bible School in Pennsylvania

Transylvania Bible School sure conjures up images of a college vampires would attend but this was not the case it was a very serious bible study school located on Freeport Road the Old Pa route 28
in Slate Lick  Armstrong County.
Started by the Dr. Harry Shilling in 1938  -45

https://www.bli4u.org/history

In what started out as a camp ground ,gas station etc.  and grew into a beautiful historic stone 3 story learning  facility which still stands to this day  and is now known as Biblicle Life Institute

I still remember the road side sign along modern route 28 which proudly proclaimed Transylvania Bible School   back in 60s  which was there for many years. and always wondered about the place till finnaly when i was able to drive on my own I drove up the old 28 Freeport road and found it.
people don't believe you when you tell them their was just such a place named Transylvania Bible School but for any one who lived in Armstrong ,Butler County area  at the time they would remember that road sign had they traveled down Route 28.

40-8 La Societe des Quarante Hommes et Huit Chevaux The military Organization with a chapter here in Pa. you probably never heard of but may remember their parade float

If you ever attended a parade in Western Pa. in 60s , 70s or early 80's  you may remember this float which was built to resemble a train.

The last time I saw it was in Kittaning  around 2005 it was sitting in a vacant lot minus its parade marking  the one I always remembered was the 40-8 marking on the side.
which got me wondering what was this float all about ? and what happened to it?

In  a Parade in Ellwood City Pa.

Well the answer will surprise you . The name of the Organization is

40 - 8 La Societe des Quarante Hommes et Huit Chevaux  which mens Forty and eight in french

It is  an Elite  High Honors Military Organization  which came out  of the American Legion national Meeting held right here in Philadelphia in 1920 by returning WWI vets

http://www.fortyandeight.org/history-of-the-408/

 and whose mission was to help take care of the orphans of  soldiers
killed during WWI  and has since taken on other charitable work.

All based around the numbers 40-8 which was marked on rail cars in Europe during WWI which meant  occupancy by 40 soldiers or 8 horses 

There where a couple chapters here in Pa. they even have a picnic grounds it was  in Fayette County  its way high up on a mountain ridge along US 119 in Smithfeild  Chapter 18 .Unfortunately it has closed as well

Sadly all the men who built the float and where member of the local Voiture  as it was known have all passed and chapter possibly closed . I have not heard of any activity's of the group in many years which is why the train was sitting where it was up for sale.
another unique piece of W. Pa military history lost except for Smithfeild which recently closed   But there is still an active chapter in Bucks Montgomery county area.
  and one in Trumbel County Ohio

A Strange Unused Tunnel Entrance on Southsides E. Carson Street

If you travel down E. Carson several hundred feet from Arlington ave and across from terminal way you will find a strange unused tunnel entrance
 not quite big enough for a modern car but large enough to make one wonder what it was for .

It has always been fenced off as long as I can remember but at one time you could walk under the Norfolk Southern Railroad Tracks to a small group of homes in a gully beside Arlington Ave which was partly filled in and reused for the construction of the Liberty bridge in the 1930s. .

People often call this the Neeld Tunnel  as there was a proposal at one time to run a tunnel from near this area on E. Carson to Warrinton ave  But this does not seem to be the case tunnel is not big enough . Most logical explanation is it was shut off and replaced by several steel stair cases built over the railroad because the tunnels where dark and dangerous for pedestrians to use to their homes .

Bridge over E. Carson near tunnel  now gone

Many of the pedestrian tunnels under the railroad in  Wilkinsburg where closed off for the same reason.

Sadly many of the steel staircases have been closed and removed as well over the years as people no longer walk to work in the numbers they once did from the slopes. 

If i find any more solid evidence on the tunnel and its history I will update it in the future.

Rumors of a not so Holy Cemetary in Westmoreland county where a Convent and Academy once stood

The St Xavier Convent Academy for Girls once stood along Us 30 The Lincoln Highway  near Latrobe it was within eye site of St Vincent's .
Sadly all that remains is a old road a couple pathways a broken statue of Mary and some foundations the Academy and Convent where destroyed in a catastrophic fire back in January 28 1963
.

http://explorepahistory.com/hmarker.php?markerId=1-A-373

https://screenshots.firefox.com/TksYmED1fiyr5p8h/books.google.com

What does remain and is still in use thou is the St Xavier Cemetery a little down Xavier road
with its neatly aligned tomb stones and markers the final resting place of the Nuns of Mercy

Unfortunately they have had to fence off and forbid trespassers due to graves being robbed of brass plates and ornaments and vandalism .
It is a Holy and consecrated  place not to be disturbed.

But locals have for years have talked about Rumors of a 2nd Cemetery on the property an Unholy Cemetery
 where the fetuses of unborn babies are buried those conceived by young lady's who attended the academy who got knocked up by one of the boys from St. Vincent's and even those of nuns said to have become pregnant by priests.  

Is there any truth to it the local diocese  adamantly denies any such activity ever happens and such cemetery full of  hundreds unmarked fetuses graves exists .

However having been raised Roman Catholic I have heard these same rumors not only here at St Xavier but other catholic institutions its a subject not talked about. But lets face it . In very rare instances it did happen, and how it was handled is a subject not to be talked about.Because the Roman Catholic church is anti abortion . Where the children Aborted or where they given up for adoption?

The only way these rumors will be put to rest would be to use ground penetrating radar on the grounds  and be allowed to be explored and I do not see that happening.

Yes there has always been quiet rumors about the church and its some times unholy practices  and plenty of documentary exist on You-Tube as well as books and on the History and other Cable Channels .Will the truth ever come out who knows but as long as the church is not willing to come out and allow questions to be resolved there will always be  questions rumors and conspiracy's.