You know what the Witch Doctor told me? Yes at one time Haydentown Pa had a real practicing Witch Doctor

 Yes there actually was a real Practicing Witch Doctor. who lived just off Pa 857 as you cross the  bridge on Chess Rd. it was first house on right.   in Haydentown  near  Smithfeild Pa.it appears the property was taken when Toll 43 was put thru the area n Fayette County .

 No not the African Witch Doctor stereotype you see in the movies.

He was of Native American decent and his name was Dr Twigg He had a Pavilion up behind his home where he had several ceremonial pits and practiced his Herbal Medicine 

Which is where he got the Witch Doctor  reputation from.

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

Not much is known about him as he kept to himself or who the lady's in the picture are.

But if you had an ailment in days days before close by medical care was available or even affordable  people often sought out these Herbal Practitioners  Known as Granny Witches , Witch Doctors , Herbalists etc. which today they are known  known as a Naturapathic Doctor. 

https://naturopathic.org/page/WhatisaNaturopathicDoctor

These Old Country Doctors. where highly revered back in the day , when modern medicine did not have answers and there are many still practicing today in Western Pa. including

Dr. Martin Gallagher being one of them who is heard on local radio station WEDO 810 AM  

and Dr. Lilian Ronzio of The Natural Way who can be heard on WMBS 590 AM 

While there are those who scoff at all natural and Herbal Practices they can be very complimentary to modern medicine.

 

 

The Horrific Doodle Bug Crash near Cuyahoga Falls Ohio . Doodle Bug?

 When Rail Lines ran Passenger Service  some times they did not have enough passengers to warrant a full train so especially on Short Lines they ran Doodle Bugs . A Doodle Bug?

Yes this was the name given to single rail passenger car which was self propelled usually by Gasoline some where later unfitted to Diesel .

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doodlebug_(rail_car)

said to look like a insect and some say named after a common bug the Doodle Bug 

https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/what-the-hell-is-a-doodlebug

The rail units could also carry freight as well as served as rail ambulances even Funeral Cars  

They would also get into accidents and one of the most Horrific Accidents in the Tri State Occurred near Cuyahoga Falls State Park in Ohio on July 31 ,1940

When a gasoline powered Doodle Bug owned by the Pennsylvania Railroad  collided head on with a 73 unit of cars freight train coming the opposite direction. at the intersection of Front street and Hudson Drive Then just big open fields where Circus would set up.   on its way from Hudson Ohio to Akron it has only left the station 10 minutes earlier. 

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

https://www.beaconjournal.com/story/news/local/falls-news-press/2015/09/06/doodlebug-accident-remembered-75-years/19776625007/

 

Upon impact at an estimated 55 MPH   43 of 46 passengers died almost instantly  after the doodle bugs 350 gallon gas tank exploded and doodle bug caught fire. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zRLtBS4g_RA

Miraculously the Doodle Bug Engineer survived having jumped and recalled he had orders to pull into the Hudson Siding to allow the freight train to pass but did not .

 

It was ruled that Carbon Monoxide getting into the cab area of the Doodle Bug had caused him confusion as crews complained of fumes with previous trips.\

 

The crash scene was horrific body's burned so bad they had to be sawed from their seats.

 in 2005 a Memorial was placed near the scene.of the accident 

Today modern signal systems are designed to stop train collisions but they still happen one several years ago near Philadelphia  when an subway operator missed a switch.

 

A Water Goblin in a Long Gone Pond near Frick Park that attacked and Drowned Several Young Kids ?

  A Big Thank You to John Shalcosky  of 

The Odd ,Mysterious and Fascinating History of Pittsburgh 

For bringing this story to light. 

 Water Goblins you say? Yes that's what young boys claimed lead to the drowning deaths of up to nine youth at a now filled in and built on Bruce's Pond  off corner of Beechwood Blvd and Dallas Street near Frick Park

 

 

 They claimed at midnight the creatures would rise from the ponds icy cold water

 

While the drownings actually happened the Water Goblin appears to have no fact to it.

Yet 9 children did looses their lives which is high but  many of these long gone ponds around Pittsburgh can be very deep and slippery shoreline a child could easily slide in and drown.  

That's why so many Ponds and lakes around Pittsburgh are where drained and filled in Like Silver Lake in East Liberty ,and if a story was made up to keep the kids away all the better.

Their almost all gone the mysterious No name Stores and Lunch Counters that served the Mill and Factory Workers of Western Pa.

 They where the every day staple for those who worked in the mill and could often be found across the street from a Steel Mill or Factory Gate Like the store in picture below which served the Steel Workers going into the US Steel  Clairton Coke Works in Clairton Pa. along Pa 837

 

 Now closed and up for lease like this location . These stores  often run by old men  and retirees served as a place of comfort for workers where they could get a newspaper or magazine a cup of coffee, cigarettes play the lottery or get a bottle of aspirin or shoe laces  and confections .

Many had no name on them like this store and where basic holes in the wall not much bigger than 100 square feet in some cases  and the buildings very run down  some even had a slant to them .

Most now long gone and torn down . Some where small Lunch Counters and some had seating  like Gino's on Neville Island  where you could get a coffee and large piece of excellent lasagna served fast and cheap $5.00 for lunch .

 

But the old men who ran them since they where young got too old to run them and keep them up and shut them down  like in Gino's case but many more where lost in the 80s when many mills and factory's shut down  due to work going overseas and less demand for products and no more workers stopping by for their essentials.

 

There use to sit a small 100 square ft  Green Wooden  Building on left side of the entry tunnel as you went into J&L/ LTV in Alliquippa in above picture.

It was run by a man who was blind who could easily tell change when he made a sale but an occasional scum of a Steel Worker would rip him off and give him a dollar instead of a $20 dollar Bill 

So many story's and good times  of all these legendary locations.  But so little documentation.

There was the  Biggest Little Store on the North Side of Pittsburgh across from Miller Printing Equipment long gone along with Miller Printing.   also Bills Lunch along Lockhart lost when roadways where rebuilt .

Now when family member go looking pictures of these stores and restaurants there Grandparents worked at to reminisce and there is nothing to be found. 

I just wish I could have afforded a movie camera back in day when I worked as a Guard at so many of the places I guarded and stopped at for a cup of coffee  that are now long gone and nothing more than a memory.

If I find photos or articles on these places I will post them as I find them .