This article was researched and written by PA Room volunteer Paul Davis. Thanks to Paul for contributing! The Marquis de Lafayette became one of the most influential figures in the history of the Western World. He was known as “The Hero of Two Worlds” because of his actions in the American Revolution and his involvement…
A few weeks ago we received a photograph of a World War I soldier. The donor didn’t have any details on the man, but among the spare copies of the picture, they found a name: Pasquale Cimaglia. . . . Yes, that was the sound of me breathing a sigh of relief! Unidentified photographs make me sad. I always…
Pennsylvania Room volunteer Paul Davis spotted this story in the Daily News Standard while seeking an obituary. Hell hath no fury, right?
Advertisement from the Evening Standard. May 13, 1889.
If you live in Fayette County, you likely heard about the railroad cars that derailed behind the courthouse last week. Happily, no one was injured and no hazardous materials were spilled. There were no disruptions at the library, though we did listen to the steady thrumming of an engine for a few days while part of…
Like many of our patrons, we received mail from some distant locales this holiday season. One package arrived from the Museum of South Texas History, whose curator sent us two pictures to add to our collection. The images date back to 1933 and depict National Guard troops stationed in Brownsville during the coal strikes. Both…
The last month of 1922 was a rough one for Fayette County’s taverns. Though the National Prohibition Act (or “Volstead law”) was put in place nearly three years earlier, local speakeasies still offered a setting for “many Saturday night frolics and joyous pleasure parties,” as an article in the Daily News Standard called them. That came to an…
Halloween has come and gone — my favorite holiday by far! Yesterday I sat at the PA Room’s desk, dressed in full pirate regalia and eager to scare any kids who wandered too far from the confines of the Children’s Library. (Actually, I had candy for them. But they still seemed to be afraid of me.) It…
It’s a little remarkable to me that, being a connoisseur of all things dark and spooky, I’d never read about Frank Monaghan until I began working here. Yes, I’d heard the man’s name mentioned in passing — typically in connection with courthouse tours. But my real introduction to his case only came after I began exploring our Rare…
Next month marks the 109th anniversary of the Rand Powder Mill Explosion, a series of blasts at a Fayette County black powder factory that killed 18 people, shattered windows in Uniontown, and shook buildings as far away as Greensburg. The Pennsylvania Room maintains photos of the September 9, 1905 disaster that were taken by E.W. Hague,…