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100 years in the valley: West Homestead's community efforts forge centennial
Wednesday, June 20, 2001 By Linda Wilson Fuoco, Post-Gazette Staff Writer
The West Homestead bank of the Monongahela River will be the site of a down-home, small-town fishin' derby Saturday. On the face of it, there's nothing extraordinary about that. But for many decades, this section of shoreline was off limits to the men, women and children who lived within walking distance of the river.
West Homestead centennial events calendar
Munhall celebrates upswing, rich memories after tough times
Steel had been king in the Mon Valley since the late 19 th century, and Andrew Carnegie's mills hugged miles of the Monongahela shoreline. In 1898, Mesta Machine Co. set up shop in the shadow of those mills to manufacture machines used in the steel-making process. Hulking industrial buildings and belching smokestacks separated people from the river.
In 1901, the town that grew up around the machine shop and a portion of the Homestead Works was incorporated as the borough of West Homestead. And now in the year 2001, West Homestead celebrates its 100 th anniversary with a weeklong list of activities that include putting people in touch with the river.
The town and its 2,197 residents have much to celebrate, although the mill, the machine shop, more than 5,000 jobs and 931 residents have left West Homestead in the last two decades. West Homestead has more than survived the 1983 bankruptcy of Mesta and the 1986 shutdown of the USX Homestead Works.
While the unemployment rate soared to about 20 percent in the 1980s, the borough never once operated in the red. Elected officials, municipal employees and residents dug in their heels and worked to reinvent their town as a bustling enclave of small but prospering businesses.
Revival efforts got a big boost in 1988 when the Cleveland-based Park Corp. bought the Mesta and USX properties. Park operates West Homestead Engineering & Manufacturing Co. on part of the Mesta property and cleared the rest of the site.
The Kennywood Co. purchased 40 acres from Park to build Sandcastle, Allegheny County's only riverfront water park. June 26 is West Homestead Day at Sandcastle, a daylong component of the 100-year celebration.
The Waterfront shops, offices and entertainment facilities occupy the biggest portion of the former mill site, with development and construction still under way.
Chairman of the 100 th anniversary celebration is John Dindak, mayor of West Homestead since 1971. One of his daughters, Lisa Guckes, is secretary of the celebration, and his daughter-in-law, Linda Dindak, is the anniversary committee member who organized the fishing tournament. The mayor's son, volunteer fire company Chief John Dindak Jr., long active in local Little League baseball, has helped to plan the June 27 home run derby.
The Dindaks are quick to mention they are just some of the cogs in the celebratory wheel. Treasurers of the anniversary committee are Ruth Mihaly and Ann Mae Serenka.
Other committee members are Dave Weir, Cheryl Johnson, Mary Lou Leech, Dianne Cain, Jeannie Pingor, David Harhai, Rose Scolieri, Barb L. Balistere, Don and Donna Rottman, Ray Fonos, Chaz Brandt, police Chief Vincent Balistere, Alice Veltri, Dane Isaacs, police Officer Herbert Strobel, Ed Carr, Mary Soltis, Bill Stasko, Joe Baran, Karen Cameron, Eleanor Kondis, Judy Walker and Debbie Frederick.
Chris Johnson, a Steel Valley High School senior, volunteered to design a centennial Web site full of information about the celebration events and some of the town's colorful history.
His brother, Patrick Johnson, who just finished his sophomore year, does graphics for the site. Johnson, who graduated earlier this month, got some help from his lifelong friend, Chuck Lippert, who is co-Webmaster.
The budget for the weeklong party is about $40,000, with "no local tax money involved at all," said Weir, who is also a West Homestead council member. "We had fund-raising spaghetti dinners and Monte Carlo nights, and we've had donations and corporate sponsors."
"You wouldn't believe how generous people have been," Mayor Dindak said. We had to cut off advertisements in the yearbook."
The 104-page book covers 100 years of West Homestead history. It's replete with old photographs borrowed from residents. The book has been designed and produced by D and R Graphics, owned by Don and Donna Rottman of West Homestead. A total of 750 are being published and sold for $10 each.
Besides pictures and ads, the book contains anecdotes from the town's colorful history.
"We have Khrushchev's visit in the 1950s, the crash of the B-26 in the Mon River and, of course, our Lotto-playing efforts," Weir said.
In 1959, the Mesta company hosted a tour by Soviet Premier Nikita S. Khrushchev. The visit was controversial, because the Cold War was under way, but residents are proud of their moment in the headlines.
West Homestead made headlines around the world in 1984 when the borough began buying state Lotto tickets, hoping they could fill their shrinking municipal coffers with a multimillion jackpot. It was the mayor's idea, and he bought the lottery tickets with money donated by borough employees and residents.
"We played for 20 months. We hit a number of times with four numbers, and once we had five of the six numbers," Weir said. "We won $1,300 that time, I think. The Lotto project, overall, actually ended up in the black."
Dan Isaacs, a West Homestead councilman 31 years, said he was most proud of the "careful and prudent spending" and the planning and cooperation that got the town through the dark decade of the '80s.
The cooperation included municipal employees and residents volunteering their labor in 1993 to build a new department of public works building.
Through the very toughest of economic times, "our services never diminished," Isaacs said. "We had police, we had road crews, we had garbage collection."
Isaacs has been heavily involved as council president in construction of a new municipal building. The Sunday ribbon cutting is a centerpiece of the anniversary celebration. Final cost is expected to be about $900,000.
The nearly 100-year-old municipal building is in the process of being sold. Council was looking for a minimum bid of $80,000.
Isaacs said he might participate in the Saturday fishing tournament.
"We had fishing contest in past years, but they were always at Duck Hollow" on the opposite shore of the river, in the city of Pittsburgh, he said. "Since the mills went down, we've been able to catch bass and walleye and muskie. I have a 34-inch tiger muskie mounted on my wall."
Linda Dindak said the state Fish Commission has agreed no one will have to buy fishing licenses for the tournament, and there is no entry fee, either. Night crawlers will be supplied, and volunteers are making bait dough balls.
"Registration will be at the fire hall, and people will be directed to the fishing site. The fish commission will be on hand, and there will probably be a demonstration of some kind and handouts for the kids, including fishing tips.
"The state is loaning us 40 rods," and rods and reels have been donated as prizes. The tournament is a "catch-and-release" contest. Fish will be weighed and measured, with prizes awarded for longest fish, heaviest fish and most fish caught.
The mayor admitted he's not much of a fisherman. "I fished with my father many times over at Duck Hollow, but I never baited a hook."
However, he will be happy to watch children, including his grandchildren, Johnathan, 15, and Danielle, 5, fish where no Dindak had fished before.
The address of the 100th anniversary Web site is http://www.angelfire.com/pa4/Whmstdis100/index.html
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