The Creepy Tradition of taking your Prom Date to the Allegheny County Morgue

Yes back in the 20's to50's it was seen as a cool tradition to take your date to observe the unknown at the Allegheny County Morgue

The Morgue for many years had an observation deck  they called the chapel you walked onto where you could look thru glass windows into the coolers  and observe the preserved body's of those who where unknown. My aunts and uncles talked about going on there Prom date to see the body's






 Call it creepy to say the least and guys setting up their dates on a dare  so they could hold them tiight but what ever the cause it sure sounds like a macabre thing to do. 

When I was a young man I visited the morgue as part of a trip planned by the Law Enforcement Explorer Post  777 I belonged to  which was sponsored by the old Station 7 on Southside .  and we saw some of the items used and learned some of the history of the morgue including the fact  They painted over the windows in the chapel in 60's so you could no longer observe the body's and how the morgue was at one time  was attached to the county jail and was then moved by horse and man power to its present location.




 Its all closed now and has been taken over by county health dept but the memories of our greatest generation going to see the body's will be remembered for many generations to come as we pass down their story's .


 

The Very Dark Christmas of 1969 The Jock Yablonski Family Murder was Horrific but not the first time tragedy had visited the house

The week of Christmas of 1969 started off joyous and happy as usual in The Pittsburgh area but just a couple days in on  December 31 when killers would creep into the  the home of dissident union  Coal Miners Labor leader Jock Yablonski home and kill jock and several members of his family violently with shotguns.

The crime and the headlines where Horrific who could do such a horrible crime and why.

The case would end with the lifetime imprisonment and death in prison  of UMWA  Union President
Tony Boyle .

It all started with a disagreement between Yablonski and Boyle on how the union should be run as Yablonski saw Boyle being involved in criminal matters with union assets .
and ended up an all out war.




With Yablonski  His wife and daughter murdered and there bodies not being found till January 5th by there son.

But in a very strange twist  involving their home this was not the first time Murder Visited it.

In fact 31 years earlier a Pa. State Trooper by last name of Naughton who had mistreated  Jock years
earlier died in the homes when it was a boarding home and a mad man resident went on a terror spree in the home killing the responding trooper.

http://tenmilecreekcountry.blogspot.com/2008/11/most-are-aware-of-murders-of-jock.html

Jock viewed the house shortly after the incident got interested in it and had it mad into his home

Below is a full account of the home  from Haunted Pittsburgh Tours

If you ever get the chance you have to take in one of their tours

THE YABLONSKI HOUSE: WESTERN PENNSYLVANIA'S CREEPIEST STORY
The following isn't an urban legend, and it's not a campfire story. Every word can be verified, and you have to read this one to the end.
The story centers around the house in Clarksville, Pennsylvania (about an hour's drive south of downtown Pittsburgh) where Western Pennsylvania's most famous crime occurred -- the Yablonski family was slain there. This is a picture of the house.
In the late 1960s, “Jock” Yablonski was a crusading labor reformer who loathed and despised injustice. Until the day he died, Mr. Yablonski was still talking about the time way back in the 1920s when, as a very young man, he was arrested on some minor offense. He claimed he was treated miserably by the police officer who arrested him. We're not sure what happened, but he never, ever got over it.
Mr. Yablonski’s distaste for injustice led him to announce in June of 1969 that he would try to unseat the powerful president of the United Mine Workers union, Tony Boyle because the union was marred by corruption. Within a short time after that announcement, as if to prove Mr. Yablonski’s point, Tony Boyle ordered his subordinates to kill Jock Yablonski. Several failed attempts were made on Mr. Yablonski’s life, and when the union election was held in December of 1969 – an election marred by violence and corruption -- Boyle defeated Mr. Yablonski.
But winning the election wasn’t enough for Tony Boyle. Three weeks later, in the pre-dawn blackness of the last day of 1969, three men skulked into the Yablonskis’ historic three-story farmhouse in quiet Clarksville, Pennsylvania, 45 miles south of Pittsburgh, and brutally massacred Jock Yablonski, his wife, and their 25-year-old daughter. It was the biggest story in America when it happened, and it remains the most shocking crime Western Pennsylvania has ever witnessed. Ironically, in the end, Jock Yablonski’s war on injustice was a success: a court threw out the union election and ordered Tony Boyle to run again, something that would not have happened if Jock Yablonski had not been murdered. Boyle went on to lose that election to a Yablonski protégé, and it wasn’t long before Boyle was tied to the Yablonski murders and was convicted.
But there’s more to the story -- something so bizarre, it defies explanation. After the murders, all sorts of wild tales began circulating about the Yablonski house being cursed - - about screams and gunshots emanating from the house, and about blood running out of the walls. That is the typical sinister folklore associated with a house where such a terrible thing happened. But there is actually something well-documented about the house that is creepier than all those urban legends.
You see, the Yablonski murders were not the house’s first brush with horror. During Prohibition, so the story goes, a previous owner had hanged himself in the basement.
Wait. Four untimely deaths in one house in quiet little Clarksville? How much tragedy can one house bear?
Hang onto something because that's not all. Long before the Yablonski murders, in the late 1930s, the house was used as a boarding house, and one of the boarders was a man named Frank Palanzo who said he heard voices from the sky and that witches spoke to him. Palanzo was known to string barbed wire around his house to keep people out, and one time he was spotted in a cornfield covered in corn to the point that he resembled a giant ear of corn. Then, on January 30, 1939, Frank Palanzo barricaded himself in a room upstairs, stuck a shotgun out the window, and threatened to shoot people below. Someone called the police. A state trooper named George D. Naughton (pronounced “knock-ton”) came to the house and climbed the stairs to Palanzo's room. Palanzo opened the door, and supposedly on orders of witches, shot state trooper Naughton dead with a 12-gauge shotgun. Like the Yablonski murders three decades later, this shocking crime was a major news story reported on the front pages of newspapers across America.
Are we getting your attention yet? What are the odds of FIVE gruesome deaths – including two incidents involving grisly murders reported on front pages across America – in the same house in quiet little Clarksville?
“Just one of those things” you say? Alright, then let us tell you just one more thing about the house.
Remember at the outset of this story, we told you that Jock Yablonski claimed he was treated miserably by a police officer when he was a very young man back in the 1920s, and that Mr. Yablonski never, ever got over that mistreatment? So, what does that have to do with the house, you ask?
The police officer who treated Mr. Yablonski so miserably was none other than state trooper George D. Naughton -- the man who was killed on the order of witches in the same house where Jock Yablonski and his family also would be massacred some three decades later.
Ladies and gentlemen, some people believe that coincidence is God's way of remaining anonymous. Others might attribute something more dark and sinister to this particular set of facts. We, personally, don’t know what to make out of any of it -- but please, please, do not try to tell us that this was “just one of those things.”
NOTE: There are no ghost tours of the Yablonski House--it's a private residence. Join us for a ghost tour at Haunted Pittsburgh: http://www.hauntedpittsburghtours.com

In 1974 a case of Domestic Terrorism hits the Gulf Building in Downtown Pittsburgh and has gone unsolved to this day.

Yes when I was a young cub scout in late 60's you could actually go up to the top of the Gulf building in Downtown Pittsburgh and they had an observation deck on top which we all checked out . At the time the Gulf Building was the tallest building in Pittsburgh  with its high powered blue or red beacon depending on what weather was doing and when it flashed meaning weather was changing would spell in Morse code welcome to Pittsburgh  this was before they built the US steel Tower also known as the Rusty Nail. for it rusty looking  Corten Steel. was built in 1970's before the US Steel tower was erected when we went to visit our aunt Peg who lived on 3rd floor of a tenamant on 49th street in Lawrenceville we could see the Gulf Building.




That easy carefree time came to an end on June 13th 1974 around 9:30 Pm when the  Guard watching the desk gets a call telling him he had 20 minutes to evacuate the building there was a bomb  and several minutes latter there was a massive explosion  on the 29th floor  luckily no one was hurt and emergency officials who had been checking out the building had just cleared the area before it went off .






The Gulf Building was targeted supposedly by The Weather Underground  because the famous Gulf Oil Company was headquartered there and the Weather Underground held them responsible for supposed deaths they caused to native Africans  during there oil explorations.

The building from that day on was sealed off no more of the public just walking in and the observation deck was closed forever .

 The Pittsburgh Police and FBI would investigate along with Allegheny county Detectives  but no suspects where developed or arrests ever made . Of course back then Closed Circuit cameras where still in there infancy and few where deployed and most did not record. To my knowledge the Gulf building did not have them.  I suspectsome one posing as a cleaner or contractor planted the explosives and since no one checked in back in those days the Gulf Building was an easy open target.

What ever happened to Carl Brunner from Franklin twp pa. ?

I meet Carl Brunner  a retired gentleman who was a recovered alcoholic while staying at my dads friend  from J&L Steel Charlie Jackson  summer home  on Mckim Way in Franklin Twp along Conequnessing Creek .He resided with the Jacksons after meeting Charlie at an alcoholics anonymous meeting . He was originally from Windber Pa area and grew up with Johhny Wiesmiller the actor who played the  Original Tarzan  in the movies . He had a neat old Corvair car yes the one Ralph Nadar said was dangerous at any speed. Just like in picture below.

He and Charlie always kept these very strong little candy's called Nibs around the house to help keep that taste for alcohol off there minds.  Even thou both had been dry for many years the temptation is always there.

He was always nice to me and my brothers and often talked about his exploits when him and Charlie where off the wagon  Like the time they put a horse in charlies car when there friend got to drunk to ride it home . After Charlie passed from a heart Attack one of the nicest guys you ever wanted to meet ,  he stayed on with Mrs Jackson for  the summer but then one day he asked if he could ride into Rochester with us to get something. While my dad was getting something from the Pharmacy Carl went into the state store unknown to my dad and once again started a life of alcohol .

He started getting mean with Mrs Jacksonand she asked him to leave this would have been around 1972  he got into his Corvair and was never heard from again. Did he end up in some skid row apartment  or nursing home or did he die a homeless unknown bum on the street did he go to find family no one knows . Tragically Mr Brunners story plays out every day in this state by those who become afflicted by the devil in the bottle. Where ever he is I hope he is Resting in Peace for he hs surely passed by now he would be well over 100 by now.  hopefully some day I will find out what happened to him and know the rest of his story to be able to share it

Sknojin Road in Ohara Twp. a dream not realized and an old mans warning

Yes if you look for Sknojin road in Ohara twp you will not find it on a map unless its an old map as its name has been lost to history  to be replaced with Falconhurst  a housing development. which sits back off falconhurst road . Which was built upon the ashes of the property's original descendants the Novasols and Skotaks
whose ashes  along with Barbara friend Mitzi where spread on the property in 2005  by there descendants . The housing development is also on top of a pet cemetery as well I buried many of my pets there including my beloved English bull dog Winston and Mr. Rabbit plus almost every pet the novasols owned well over 30 pets laid to rest and not to be disturbed.

But lets start from the beginning one of the more interesting people I have meet in my life time was Barbra Novasol my 10th grade Biology teacher who I had a life time friendship with after she introduced me to the world of collecting rocks and minerals. I even went on to become the president of the long forgotten Pittsburgh Mineral & Lapidary  Society I may at this point be one of the last member living .

Barbara lived with her parents  Nick and Hilda on an old farm along Sknojin road in ohara along with her cousin Tony Skotak The last of the real men he did not have running water or a phone and lived on the old skotak property in picture below with his beloved black Labrador  smoky and neighbors dog .
Tony and Novasols property was right next to the farm orchards of the old Allegheny county Work house jail and one time Tony single handed caught 2 escaped inmates  on his property and marched them back down to the jail  at the point of a shot gun.  a distance of almost 1 mile .on rugged hill side.


The Novasols and Tony always wanted their property's preserved as parks so people could see how people lived there lives in the early 20th century. The property was also significant in the fact that they where original homesteaders and it was once used by the Pennsylvania Canal for maintaining  the mules used to haul boats along the canal

This was not to be because a couple of  relatives  decided they would turn the property into high end homes  and destroy all the natural beauty this property  afforded the township. often on summer afternoon the lady's of the surrounding homes would walk up Sknojin and visit barb and her mom and have a glass of fresh lemonade and the kids would play in the woods
 When Barbra the last Novasol Died  they could not wait to get their hands on the property and develop it against the Wishes of Tony and the Novasols. and 1 other relative who was still living at the time.
 When an old man tells some one their wishes and warns them they better do it  and they are not carried thru well I will let you use your imagination.  But it has all the makings for a good Paranormal Story in the future . I wonder if the people living in those 8 fancy houses even know they are living on the graves of the Novasols and Skotaks  plus all those pets?  Plus those who crossed Tony and the Novasols and did not follow their wishes  will have to answer in the end  for what they did to such a beautiful property filling it in and destroying it .