A totally made up Urban Legend about a City of Clairton Pa neighborhood

The City of Clairton has gone thru a rough time like many of the Mon Valley  community's  and you will find entire areas of empty homes. One such section in the Wilson section of Clairton known as  Lincoln Way .Which interested a writer Johnny Joo  who wrote a made up story  about a monster haunting it.
and how the monster had scared away the residents . The street  is now totally abandoned and shut off to traffic .



 The whole story of any kind of a monster haunting this area is total nonsense . I know many who lived in the area and no one ever talked of a monster  . The reason the homes are abandoned is because people moved away to find jobs elsewhere in the country. Plus these homes in particular where bought out for the stalled Mon Valley Expressway .  Many a time I was up and down this road and never saw or heard a thing.,other than to see how it was deteriorating like so many other areas in the valley. The reason so much was left behind is because some of the people where elderly and moved to Nursing facility and did not need to bring things with them and they left stuff behind. See this all the time in community's an elderly person whose children live out of town gets sick goes to hospital and never comes home children come to town take what they want and leave the rest even see meals left on tables uneaten plenty of homes all over the area like this sitting abandoned and taxes and utility never paid and will never be fixed up due to all the tax  and utility liens on them.
I have done work for realty company's and you should see all the stuff left behind by apartment renters especially college students when I go to do repairs and check units conditions.So how these homes where left does not surprise me. as far as cars left probably have blown engines transmissions etc. or could belong to some one in jail. My mom had a car sitting for 9 years across from her place after owner was sent to jail and city finally towed it. 

The houses were  torn up by thieves looking for scrap to sell or old stained glass windows which could be stolen and doors and mantle pieces  anything of any use was stripped from the homes by thieves not some made up monster. 

But now that the whole made up story has hit the internet its being taken for gospel truth just like the totally fabricated story of the Gongalier mansion on Pittsburgh's North Side and the Wood Chopper in Penn Hills. 

I recently saw some one post about a house with Address of 666 on Rodi Road in Penn Hills and they wondered what went on there. Again total nonsense there  some ones imagination. 

Yes ghost story's are fun but if your going to publish them as fact instead of legend you are doing the 
paranormal community a disfavor.

Note : The entire block of homes has been torn down and leveled with No Trespassing Signs posted
in 2018 

Who switched the Account File at a Local police station that lead to police and fire being sent to wrong buildings?

Back before 911 in early 80's  and local police depts dispatched there own officers one prominent community in the South Hills of Pittsburgh Bethel Park  maintained their own  Digital Communicator receiver to receive and dispatch alarms.

It was a high end Silent Knight Receiver and a alarm company  AAA Alarm ( No relation to AAA Road Service )installed and maintained it for them Unfortunately AAA alarm did not have a very good reputation and was known for very poor installations.
 I had a customer Larry Fulton  who owned 3 Foodland  Super Markets which had their alarms monitored at the Bethel Park Police Station.
System worked extremely well and police where always dispatched any time any of the alarms went off.

But then one day the now long gone South Park  Food Land was broken into and meat and cigarettes stolen and  Police where never dispatched.
After checking the system over I found out that the Acron Digital Communicator set for 3/1 format inside the Moose Panel had been tampered with .
At first it was thought and employee in the store messed with it but no one was ever charged and since it was a small burglary .
A few months after this happened the owner of AAA sold his company to Holmes Protection  in Pittsburgh  whose parent company was based in NYC.
 I get a call from Larry one day to tell me Bethel Park was not getting alarm system when he checked it  which he started doing weekly after the first incident.
I went to the store and again found wiring to communicator was tampered with but this time a service tech from Holmes had been in the store working in panel with out mine or Larry's permission.

Needless to say Holmes Protection got a registered letter from me about what was going on and all  the stuff that was going on at Pittsburgh office including when I worked there.
I corrected the wiring  and tested it to Bethel Park PD he said he did not get a signal . I tried it again and no signal . I put my telephone butt set on phone line heard communicator calling  so I knew it was talking to receiver . I asked dispatcher did any other alarms come in and he said  yes Presbyterian church came in  twice. I asked him what was the account number he said #789 I said wait a minute thats South Park Food Land Alarm account number. Apparently some one switched out the log book with account numbers. Bethel Park PD  launched an immediate investigation I got a call from a Sgt. who got my information  and after it was found some one was fooling around with log book either by accident or deliberate  they took immediate actions to prevent it from happening again .I do not believe an officer was involved but a holmes employee
We never had another issue after I found out the log book account numbers had been switched around which explained why alarms where not being received  and why fire dept or police where being sent to non exsistant alarms.

When Allegheny 911 center was formed many depts no longer received alarms at their stations any more and its now handled by 3rd party monitoring centers  and panels have communicators built into their boards preventing miswiring issues.

Holmes protection in Pittsburgh after Holmes Corporate came into town and saw how bad the operation had become sold the branch to Westec which is now Vector who cleaned house and straighten out the former holmes branch.


A little known tragedy at a Cannonsburg Pa Opera house which left 26 dead from a Panicked Stampede

It has been a law for many years  in many states that it is illegal to yell  FIRE in a crowded  theater when it is not on fire. Anti Panic laws as they are known  are in place for good reason after numerous tragedy's resulted in people stampeding to escape a venue and people being crushed to death after some one would yell fire or bomb  etc to get a rise out of the crowd.

This case of a false fire alert played out with deadly results on a warm Saturday evening Aug 26  1911 in the Morgan Opera House  in Canonsburg.
Home to singing greats Bobby Vinton and Perry Como  you would never expect such a tragedy that would tally 26 dead would have played out in such a small town but it did.

The theater was playing several serial features when one of the film strips caught fire in the Projection Booth  and the projectionists quickly where able to remove the flaming film and stomp it out . But in the mean time a young man passing the open door to the booth saw the flames and yelled
FIRE  a panic crowd quickly ran to the single steep staircase  and the pushing and shoving would result in the deaths of 26 men woman and children.
As there had been several well publisied fire tragdys in opera house around the county at that time




This may well have been what set people off in such a panic but we will never know as will we never know the name of the young man who yelled fire when there was not one. 

The opera house would close and be turned into apartments and you would never suspect  such events ever took place riding by it today.