Fall into History and the Harvest Festival
History can be full of surprises and sometimes even a mystery or two. Maybe even a ghost. Greene County Historical Society has all of this and more.
Fall Civil War Reenactments
Fall days in Greene County set the stage for Civil War reenactment as the 140th Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry and the 31st Virginia Infantry Company H file onto the battlefield and commence warfare.
Take to the Sky
But the real story of this little county airport and others of its kind scattered across America, is how many kids stopped by to check out the planes and ended up becoming pilots. There’s that magic age of twelve to fifteen years when the young mind is in flux, waiting for the right adventure to become the passion that the career of a lifetime can be built around.
The Beginnings of a Tradition
Waynesburg is perhaps best known for a summer-time event, their annual Rain Day celebration on July 29. The local holiday is known around the globe and receives national attention each year as locals enjoy the festivities on High Street in Greene County’s “County Town” hoping that rain will fall from the sky, keeping a tradition alive that dates back a little over a century. But how did such a small rural community get their own holiday?
River Boats
One of the best known steamboat tugs and the only one still on a river is the W.P. Snyder, Jr., originally built in 1918 and owned by the Carnegie Steel Company. It was originally named the W.H. Clingerman and was one of the first steel hulled steamboats. In September of 1945, it was sold to the Crucible Steel Company and renamed W.P. Snyder, Jr.
Railway Along the Mon River
The Pennsylvania, Monongahela & Southern Railroad was organized in 1902 under the Pennsylvania Railroad to extend the rail line from West Brownsville to Rices Landing. In May 2000, the abandoned rail bed was dedicated as a rail-trail along the Monongahela River.
Rices Landing
Along the Greene River Trail Rices Landing Settlement of Rices Landing One of the earliest overnight visitors was George Washington, when he and his troops camped here on their way to Pittsburgh during the French & Indian War. In 1786, John Rice purchased land on the east side of Enoch’s Run, a tributary of the…
W.A. Young & Sons Foundry and Machine Shop
William A. Young, a descendant of two established families of Washington and Greene counties, purchased a plot of land in Rices Landing in 1900. The following year his mother, Rachel A. Young, bought the adjoining lot and sold it to her son in 1902. William Young built his foundry and machine shop on these two parcels of land and operated the facility until his death in 1940. Young’s sons, Walter and Carl, carried on the operation until 1965.
Magic of Flenniken
Small town libraries are like the loving literary auntie that every family depends on to make learning a great adventure for kids of all ages. Kids can find themselves in another world within the pages of books found at the library.
Pittsburgh Coal Seam
Named by H.D. Rodgers of the First Geological Survey of Pennsylvania, the first reference to the Pittsburgh coal bed was on a 1761 map. In the mid 1700s at Fort Pitt, coal was being mined on Coal Hill, or as it is known now, Mount Washington. The coal was extracted from drift mines in an outcrop about 200 feet above the Monongahela River.