Charlie Tilden’s great grandfather, Charles, was born a slave on a southern tobacco plantation. He was over fifty before he was freed at the end of the civil war and immediately came north to New Castle, where he lived for the remaining thirty years of his life, long enough to raise a son, Charles Jr—who worked in downtown barber shops and was arrested every so often for burglary, drunkenness, gambling and carrying concealed knives and […]
The Bowens, an old couple who lived next door to the Clover Farm store on East Washington street, were awoken at almost two in the morning by the sound of someone prowling around outside. Mr Bowen went out with a flashlight to see what was going on while his wife called the police. Samuel Webber and Frank Vanasco—two boys in the middle of their last year of high school—had broken into the store using a […]
In the twenties, hundreds of thousands of people visited Cascade park every summer from across western Pennsylvania and eastern Ohio to enjoy its amusements, its man-made lake and its carefully presented scenery. The park suffered during the depression, never to regain its former popularity, but the second week of August, 1946, was busier than normal for that period. Large family picnics were held every day by bible study classes, the Lawrence County Red Cross chapter, […]
Blackberries sold for about 25 cents a quart in the summer of 1921, when Frank Heckathorn and his cousins made a few dollars a day collecting them from the roadsides north of New Castle and selling them in the city. On the afternoon of July 15th, they had driven some miles out on the Pulaski road and Frank was searching for huckleberries in the bushes and trees by a lane on the old Greer farm when he […]
Three hundred and nine bottles of whiskey were carried out of the state liquor store on Liberty street at three in the morning on 8th May 1945. The pinch bar that had been used to force the door was the only trace left by the burglars. A month later, Archie Shoup, the chief of police in Bessemer, ten miles west of New Castle, was making a patrol at three in the morning when he saw […]
Small Town Noir 