A most unusual tactic of cutting all the phone lines going into a town to burglarize a store in Western Pa.

You would never know it today but if you visit the Lowes Home Improvement Center along Baptist Road in Bethel Park Pa.
 It was once a Shopping plaza with now defunct Hills Dept store and a Grocery store which was leveled to build the Lowes  .
 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hills_(store)

When it was a Shopping Plaza and Hills Dept Stores where still in business there was an infamous unsolved Burglary which happened  in early 80s where thieves  cut the phone lines to the alarm at the Hills and made off with a boat load of stolen items.

Thieves cutting phone lines to disable alarms no big deal you say?  Yes this was a favorite tactic of burglars after Digital Phone and Tape dialers came out in 70's as they replaced Leased Phone lines which used reverse Polarity technology and where harder to beat   and Radio systems where in their beginning stages .Thieves knew all they had to do was cut the phone line and signal would not be sent  at most a line monitor would sense no phone line and local sirens would come on and hopefully some one would hear them and call police.

However the tactics taken by this crew of burglars was rather unique.

Knowing the Hills which was protected by the defunct Firm Security company which was sold to another alarm company after its owner was killed flying his personnel aircraft  .  The thieves considered  they might still be using the old style reverse polarity which utilized a line security feature  if added or McCullough Loop technology which also could utilize line security add on   or Hills  could be  using
the new digital technology  easily defeated  they still had to get around the sirens and such. but how?
 Plus being able to surveillance the Hills or Bethel Park Police station and not arouse suspicion  at the same time. 

Well this crew of burglars cut not only Hills phone lines but every phone line going into that area of Bethel Park and no one could make a phone call even if they heard the sirens . They managed to figure out exactly where to cut the phone lines so maximum damage was done and they did it in a way that damage was not readily apparent so it looked like a massive Bell Atlantic outage as Verizon was then known then ,and since  there where no cell phones only 2 way radio phones and they where very rare indeed to see.

At the time this happened it was thought some one with extensive phone knowledge was involved 

This tactic was also used in a couple other communities as well in the Tri- State area.

So now you have a phone outage and are completely blind  to what is going on in your community and since it seems like just a random outage and not a deliberate attempt  the police will take every action to check on all the businesses but as big as Bethel Park is  the cops could not be everywhere
despite valiant efforts to check on high value targets which you would not think Hills was but they did have a large jewelry section which is what the thieves went after and got clean away that day.

Eventually some gang members where caught and the practice of cutting all the lines into a town went away with new VHF and UHF  radio technology being used along with cellular technology and Internet  it made breaking in all that much harder which unfortunately burglars changed tactics and started daylight armed robbery's of places because its easier to get the cash or what ever your after

In the mean time the amount of people whose lives where put at risk because you could not  call for emergency services  for a heart attack or Fire  was totally and completely unconscionable of these burglars .

Of course this is not the first time the Bethel Park area was the scene of well thought out master criminal attack it was also the Community where the First Armored Car Robbery took place

https://www.post-gazette.com/local/community-eyewitness/2011/10/30/Eyewitness-1927-Bethel-Park-Brinks-robber-included-man-who-d-kill-cop/stories/201110300258

 While it was transporting a payroll for miners . But in that case the Jawaorski Gang was caught and paid the price for it.

Mystery of IP Numbers being read over Tri- State Area Radio Networks Solved.

I received a Phone Call last week from Stan Gordan the famous UFO researcher in Pa.

 He received  a Email from a concerned Radio Station Listener  in the Chestnut Ridge area and she was listening to Radio Jack on 98.7  when music stopped and a strong European  sounding voice came on and started saying 192.168.254.1  for several minutes which included the dots between the numbers  Stan called me because he knew I take care of stations and thought it might be one I take care of and he was correct .

A couple evenings before this happened I was listening to late night Radio Host Clyde Lewis and his show Ground Zero and people where calling his show and concerned because they where also hearing these IP numbers being repeated on stations they listen too.

Could it be Hacker? Aliens? The Government trying to take over the networks? Was  it Russian hackers or Spy's ? If you ever listen to shortwave you will here "The Numbers Man" who repeats lists of numbers used by spy to Communicate .

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

Well after all the noise quieted down and I did some research into it and making calls to networks and other engineers I know . I found out what it was .

Its called a Barix Box

Its used used by networks and stations to deliver music and talk content over standard internet service
using AoIP  Audio over Internet 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EiBoS20Ht4o#action=share

 So what happened is when a Barix box looses it power and reboots it will acquire a new IP address using DHCP  if set for DHCP it then announces its new IP Number  and apparently somewhere in the network that evening a bunch of Barix Boxes rebooted and started delivering there IP location .

You can turn the feature off so it does not announce the IP but this was apparently not done. 

I have a Barix box at one of sites I maintain , but never installed or programmed it and when I  rebooted it and that strong sounding voice came on .

So it was not Aliens , Spy's ,Russians or government just a simple glitch on the network being delivered over the internet. 

But in today's age of conspiracy you can see why people started freaking out. 

Of course there was a very strongly worded letter from FCC few months back about Barix Box security and putting strong Passwords on them after some one hacked into one at a Radio station in California and started playing a Porno Movie over the radio station.  Hackers are every where so strong passwords and firewalls are a must.

A Mysterious 80'sRiddle which ran in the Pittsburgh Press want adds about structures along Pa. Route 51

It has completely changed over they ears the stretch along Pa. Route 51 Clairton Blvd.  in Baldwin Boro.

But at one time there was a Johnny Guarneaus  Golden Spike Restaurant Now a Mexican Restaurant  after several revisions and a Howard Johnson's  restaurant and motel  which became an Indian restaurant known as the Bombay and featured a white elephant made of wire with green ivy growing in it.  and now is a personnel care home and CVS drug store   and across the street was Beacon AMC a  car dealer which became Yellow Knife Trading Company which burned down and is now  a breakfast restaurant called First Watch.

But all 3  business played part in a riddle in early 80s  when an add ran with clues in it to this day not fully explained what it was about .

" Where the golden spike was driven where the elephant grows green and the yellow knife burned is where our passions meet ."

Plus some other wording I can not recall.

At the time it was speculated as some weird advertising for the restaurants in the area  maybe the location of a prize or was it a secret spy message ,or some one trying to meet back up with a lost love or someone  being silly either way it would run for  several months in the papers classified section and was never fully explained.

Myself and many others followed the message and its clues  but never found anything to it.
 even the press got involved and was not able to explain it. and so its another ne of those unsolved mysteries. of strange classified adds.

A little insignificant concrete block building in Butler County once played a part in keeping our nations roads safe before the interstates where built.

Thousands of people have driven past the small insignificant block building on the side of US-422  which runs thru  Butler County Pa. near Moraine State Park  and the only thing that might attract your attention is the old vintage blue Embarc Phone Booth that sits by it but if you look a little more you will see remnants of a red and green traffic light on an old wooden telephone pole
while the site is obsolete and no longer used today at one point it played a significant role in protecting the motoring public from overweight and dangerous trucks in 40's to 60's  when US- 422 was one of the major routes for Tractor Trailer drivers heading east for New Jersey and the Eastern Seaboard before interstates I-79 and I -80 where completed  and this is when US-422 was mostly just a 2 lane road with dangerous curves and steep hills before it was widened to 4 lanes and straightened in many areas. .

If you where a truck driver and running overweight  or with out proper plates and tags or otherwise afoul of the law this little weigh station could get you shut down and facing significant fines and confiscation of your rig till the situation was corrected.
and more than a few trucks coming out of Ohio back in the day where stopped for violations .
Which is why the station was placed there because of the rolling hills once you got over towards Kittaning. Which has seen several horrifying accidents of runaway trucks on the steep hill leading out of town towards Indiana county

Murders covered up by a Dynamiting of a Business which also served as housing for migrants in Portage Pa.

It was not easy for early immigrants who came to this country and who worked in the early Iron Works and Coal Mines . Hard enough to make a days wages when pay was low less than dollar a day and then money was extorted by the foreman giving you the job and your employer who charged you for everything. you did owe your soul to the company store as the song goes.

If you where fortunate enough to save a few dollars and start a business then you often had to deal with the Black Hand the early Mafia who wanted a piece of your business  and as outlined in the story below I found on Portage Area Historical Society- Face Book Page you had to deal with thieves and robbers and in this case in 1902 they gave their very lives trying to take care of their fellow man.
As was the case in many of these early crimes in Coal Mine towns there was little to no law enforcement a town constable at most.But  most likely the Iron and Coal Police little more than hired thugs by coal mine who cared less about you and all about the mine,  and if you where an immigrant well they did not waste their time investigating it, in too many cases and  thieves , robbers, rapists  ,extortionist  murderers got away with it because people where afraid to talk.

A big Thank You to Portage Area History Society for publishing such a horrific story and reminder of how things where back 100 years ago.



  From  -Portage Area Historical Society-

1902 - Cambria Freeman
Friday, February 13, 1902
BOARDING HOUSE BLOWS UP (House was located on North Railroad Avenue, beside what is now Kiel's Hotel)
A dastardly attempt to hide robbery and murder resulted in the
wrecking by dynamite of an Italian boarding house at Portage early Monday morning. Two persons are dead, two are injured and a score of others had miraculous escapes from death when the explosion let go. The concussion broke the windows in all the buildings for nearly a block and did some other damage.
The dead are Tony Grillo, aged 44 years, and Mrs. Tony Grillo, aged 40 years. The injured are Ralph Tellilido, a shoemaker, thumb pierced by a splinter; Joe Deslavo, injured about the shoulder.
The scene of the affair was the boarding house of Tony Grillo and his wife on Railroad street, not far from the old Pennsylvania railroad station, in a store building owned by the Doran brothers of Wilmore. In this building, which is a large frame structure, two stories high, they kept a score of boarders, the latter for the most part sleeping in the store room and the room back of it, which had been fitted up with cots.
Grillo, his wife and three daughters - Lucy, aged 9; Mary. Aged 7 and Rosie, aged 5 - occupied the ground floor adjoining the store room part of the building. Immediately over this room was another in which Tellilido and Charlie Grillo, aged 13 slept. Michael Grillo, the oldest of the five children, slept with some of the boarders in the other part of the house.
When the frightened people of Portage reached the scene they found the Grillo building badly wrecked, the walls bulging and parts of the joists and timbers lying out in the street. They also found that some of the inmates of the house were in the cellar, under piles of debris. The boarders in their night clothes, rushed out of their sleeping quarters in affright.
Patrolman Henry Plummer took charge of affairs. Under his direction a search of the ruins began, groans being heard from the cellar. The first and second floors had been torn loose, the plaster, lath and flooring lying in a pile in the cellar and under this heavy mass came cries for help. Willing hands soon pulled the stuff away and the body of Mrs. Grillo, clad in her night clothes and with a cut on her neck was found. She was dead and as soon as this fact was established, she was laid to one side and the work of rescuing the living went on.
Soon the workers found little Rosie and strange to say, she was not injured, as far as they could se. Shortly afterward more workmen brought to the outer air, Mary and Lucy Grillo, neither of whom seemed to be hurt, except for a few scratches. They were in their nightgowns and were covered with the dust from plaster. When taken out they were carried into the Union Hotel near by and given attention.
Satisfying themselves that no more were alive under the mass the searchers soon had Mrs. Grillo's body and that of her husband lying side by side. The latter had a gash on the head but whether the wounds were received through the explosion and subsequent fall into the cellar and the awful mass of debris no one knew. Many were of the opinion that murder had been done and the explosion was to hide the crime.
The house is a wreck. The first and second floors in the part where Grillo and his wife lived were torn loose and hurled upward, then falling into the cellar, the debris of the second floor falling on top of the occupants of the first floor and covering them up. The roof of the house was left on and the walls were standing somewhat bulged. Quite a lot of stuff was thrown into the streets by the force of the explosion.
Of the men injured Deslavo was hurt by the explosion forcing a
partition with great force against the cot upon which he was sleeping, but his injuries are not serious. Tellilido and young Charles Grillo were thrown from their beds in the second story against the ceiling of the room and the marks where their bodies dented the plastering can be plainly seen.
The boarders are all Italians employed about the railroad at Portage. They had no occasion to use dynamite and none of the explosive was known to be in the house, yet persons familiar with its use say that at least twenty-five pounds must have been put off under the room where Grillo and his three little girls slept. It was stated that Grillo had between $600 and $700 and his wife $200 more in the house, but none of the money has yet been found and the theory is that it was stolen by some one who killed the couple and then exploded the dynamite to cover the crime and who did not scruple to place in jeopardy the lives of nearly a score and a half of people, including five children.
Dr. Miller's examination of Grillo's body showed him that his head
was crushed in as if by some heavy instrument and his ribs were all caved in. Mrs. Grillo, according to Dr. Miller, was suffocated, as the injuries she sustained would not be sufficient to cause death.
Grillo had been a resident of Portage for twelve years. He conducted a fruit store in a room in the Exchange Hotel building, where he did a thriving business. He and his wife were hard working people and were well thought of in Portage.

A most unusual Wreck Site along I-77 in South Eastern Ohio

 Was recently going down Interstate  I -77 south to Charleston WV. to handle a problem for a customer when I noticed a large American flag with what looked like a billboard next to it.

Well it was not a advertisement at all . What the location is in fact the site of the crash of the Rigid Dirigible  Airship USS Shenandoah in 1925 .

There is a small trailer on site which serves as a museum I will have to check out some day as well.

https://www.roadsideamerica.com/story/10432

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Shenandoah_(ZR-1)

While we often hear about the terrible accident and fire regarding the Hindenburg  .

But the US Navy built and also had disastrous accidents with dirigibles  as well Shenandoah being just one of them and in each case there was loss most if not all crewman.

 The Shenandoah completed 57 trips successfully until it was traveling thru this part of Ohio on a 40 city tour when on Sept 2nd 1925  a sudden updraft from a storm grabbed it up into the atmosphere where its gas bags blew holes and then crashed to the ground 14 crewman died that day but miraculously 29 survived.