*Take The Trolley: If you were alive in 1902, you might have been among the first to ride a new-fangled means of transportation, the trolley. The Leechburg and Apollo Electric Railway Company lines ran between the two towns, stopping at Griftlo Park as it passed through North Apollo, then North Vandergrift, and Parks Township. Part of it ran on the old canal towpath. Today, remains of the trolley's era can be seen outside North Vandergrift high on the hill next to River Road. A stone bridge that carried the trolley over a small gap is still visible from the road.

*Do You Live In McLaughlinstown?: About 200 years ago in the area we call Upper Burrell, Isaac, Samuel, and William McLaughlin all owned vast farms. The area became called McLaughlinstown, then McLaughlinsville, then Merwin until 1973. Today we would recognize it as "over by Alcoa" on 710, more formerly known in the '70s as Alcoa Center.

*Boat Bridge: The Pennsylvania Canal followed the Kiski River to the Allegheny. There, a wooden aqueduct filled with water carried canal boats across the Allegheny to Freeport, and then across Buffalo Creek on another wooden aqueduct. This engineering marvel from the very early 1800s often encountered trouble. If the water in it was too low, it would freeze for the winter and no canal boats could use it. When steamboat traffic started on the Allegheny, they caused problems for the boats. Their steam stacks often hit the aqueduct when the river was high, causing considerable damage. It would be interesting to know if any evidence of these wooden aqueducts remains in Freeport, over 125 years later.

*Raising The Roof: It was a lonely three years when Patrick Harvey settled on the banks of Bull Creek (near present-day Tarentum) in 1792. He spent the days clearing land and making a home, all the while saving the cut logs. By 1795, he was ready. Harvey left to retrieve his Scottish wife, Jane, who came back with him to help eke out a living in the wilderness for another three years, at which point they had finally saved enough logs to build a barn. Patrick and Jane called for just about anyone in a 20-mile radius, as well as their nearest neighbors--the Harbisons, Zarvers, Dan Howe, and Ben Coe (both of whom had served as spies in St. Clair's army), who all lived, respectively, near present-day Freeport, Sarver, and Bull Creek. The Harvey's barn-raising took one week, and most helpers stayed all week to complete the "most pretentious structure in the vicinity." Food, rest, and hoedowns marked the end of each workday. Years later, the Harbison family remembered it as a focal point of their memories.

*Lake Vandergrift: North Vandergrift bears little marks of the Kiski River canal. Why? If North Vandergrift had existed during the days of the canal, its residents would have to live underwater. The canal's dam at Leechburg backed up the waters of the Kiski almost to present-day North Apollo. It created a wide place in the river that was the size of a small lake. Area farm children later wrote of lazy summer days fishing and swimming there. Imagine that the next time you are sitting at the North Vandergrift traffic light!

*Washed Up: In the early 1900s, two miles down river from Leechburg, not far from Baghdad, was a place on the river known as Wherry's Defeat. It seems that in the days of the canal, James Wherry had been given the contract to build a retaining wall between the Kiski and the canal towpath. It took months of labor, but the job was almost finished when the Kiski, during one of its rampaging floods, whisked away the entire fortification. Though it was later rebuilt, in a day when insurance was rare or unheard of, poor Mr. Wherry lost what today would be nearly a million dollars in the washed-up investment.

*Fighters At The Fort: Do you know which brave men defended settlers who were protected by Fort Crawford (near New Ken's Ft. Crawford Elementary)? It was one of the furthermost remote outposts on the American frontier. Ensign Coleman, Billy Brady, Captain Samuel Brady, Major Daniel Brodhead, Captain Thomas Campbell, Colonel James Carnahan, Colonel William Crawford, Captain Irwin, Lieutenant Lawrence Harrison, Brigadier-General Lachlan McIntosh, Captain Samuel Moorhead, Captain Thomas Beal, David Redick, William Ross, and Captain Thomas Stokely all served or presided over Ft. Crawford in the 1770-1792 era. Some of these men, such as Major Brodhead and Captain Brady, are today well-regarded Revolutionary War heroes. Others, such as James Carnahan, were simply local farmers who pitched in to defend their homes and families.

*Lost and Found: One day at an outdoor religious meeting in Plum in the late 1700s, a young child vanished right under everybody's noses. Fearing he'd gotten lost in the surrounding wilderness--and found by Indians, or worse yet, mauled by bears or bobcats--the men armed themselves and combed the area thoroughly for most of the day. To everyone's relief, he was found, safe and sound, at a stream in a valley just below the meeting-place. The first minister to grow up in that church (still here today as Presbyterian Church of Plum Creek), Alexander Logan became the area's first Justice of the Peace and gave his name to the area we today call Logan's Ferry.

*Burg Boom: Saltsburg, the 19th century gateway to travel on the Kiski leg of the Pennsylvania canal system, really got going when Andrew and Jane Boggs bought land from her brother. Taking advantage of the economic boom due to the salt wells in the area, they began dividing land and selling parcels to settlers working in the salt industry.