Small Town Noir

Joseph Augostine, a house painter, was arrested for disorderly conduct in February 1943, one week before Chief of Police Willis McMullen announced that New Castle would no longer tolerate such behaviour and ordered city policemen to clear all undesirables from the streets. McMullen told the press, “With the good boys of the community fighting for their lives, others sweating in vital industrial concerns to furnish war material and their elders engaged in various war activities, […]

A wealthy north hill citizen named W S Harlan returned home just after dark one December night in 1906 to discover a gang of burglars in his hallway. They were armed with blackjacks and pistols, but Harlan overpowered one of them and kept him captive while the others ran off. The burglar was fifteen years old, the son of a prominent north hill family. He confessed to other recent burglaries and named his accomplices, a […]

Victor Fay Wimer’s dairy farm was four miles east of New Castle. If he wanted to go to a bar he had to drive home, which is why, in 1946, he was sentenced to a month in jail (or three days, if he paid a $100 fine) for drunk driving (learn more related details). The previous years had been hard. Just after the depression hit Lawrence County, Victor’s house burned down, which wiped out his […]

An empty car parked near the McKissock service station at Wilmington avenue and North Jefferson street attracted the attention of two cruiser patrolmen in the early hours of 15th August 1946. A flashlight search of the forecourt revealed a scared young man hiding under the brush at the north end of the lot. He ran off but was caught and dragged back to the cruiser. He told the policemen he was LeRoy Munson, from Neshannock […]