Piece of O'Hara preserved for posterity
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Tony Skotak was an O'Hara old-timer who didn't mind digging into a cranky water pump or, when that didn't work, digging a 125-foot hole so he could build his own mail-order windmill.
It was, after all, not only his farmland but up the hill from Skonojin Road, a composite named after the three families who settled there in the early 1900s -- the Skotaks, the Novosals and the Jindras.
Bob Donaldson, Post-GazetteA windmill built in 1929 still spins aimlessly amid the bare trees at the newly named Skotak Nature Reserve in O'Hara. The late Tony Skotak donated the 10 acres to the township.
Click photo for larger image.
Today, some things have changed. None of the descendants of the original families live in O'Hara, and most of their land has been sold to make way for the Falconhurst Forest housing development. Even Skonojin Road was renamed Holland Road this summer as another 13-house phase of Falconhurst Forest was approved.
A few things, however, have not changed.
While relatives sold their parcels, Mr. Skotak showed that he could be just as stubborn in the face of so-called progress as he could be with a cranky pump. Holding onto his 10 acres until his death at 91 in 1992, Mr. Skotak donated the land to the township on the condition that it remain untouched.
He officially got his wish in October as township supervisors named the land the Skotak Nature Reserve. A memorial plaque paid for by the Falconhurst Forest developer will honor the original homesteaders, a tribute that relatives, such as Edde Kay Chane, a Jindra now living in Blawnox, can appreciate.
"I think he'd be happy to have his name on the plaque. We're all happy with it. I think it's going to be lovely," she said.
Historian Tom Powers, who's writing a history of O'Hara, said the reserve was significant because "it is on property that otherwise would have been part of a large development. But through Tony's actions, it is now preserved in its natural state."
The Skonojin area used to be called The Almighty Hollow, said Mr. Powers, who should know because his family owned nearly all of it in 1797. The hollow leads up a great sledding hill, he said, up toward Worthington Road and the other historically significant aspect of Mr. Skotak's legacy, his windmill.
Sure, it's rusted, covered with vines and protected by a fence that Mrs. Chane's husband, Richard, built to keep out vandals. But it still is where it's been since 1929, when Mr. Skotak saw the ad for it in Country Gentleman magazine, ordered it from Chicago, then unloaded its parts from a rail car.
"It's been there as long as I remember, and I'm no spring chicken," said Mrs. Chane, 67. "That's Tony's windmill. I was amazed he did it all himself."
Because of the work of Mr. Powers and an assistant, Ruth Weir, Mr. Skotak can speak for himself.
"I put it up all by myself, piece by piece. Didn't ask for any help. I was full of vinegar in those days," Mr. Skotak said in an oral history gathered by Ms. Weir in 1982 for Mr. Powers' book.
Mr. Skotak talked of the days when a ferry ran between O'Hara's Montrose Hotel on the Allegheny River and dry Oakmont and Verona, shuttling patrons to the only bar in the area. "My dad [Anton Skotak] paid for a good many bricks of that hotel," he told Ms. Weir.
Then there was Johnny Kowalsky, who took to flying planes at Rodgers Field on Powers Run Road. "I was about 10 years old then, and I'd watch him. Johnny would build a plane and smash it, rebuild it and smash it again. He could navigate OK, but couldn't tie a shoelace right. ... He never gave up. He had persistence."
No slacker himself, Mr. Skotak's four-page story often returns to the windmill.
"The township should know it's the only windmill in the township and that it should be preserved and maintained," he said. "It needs a place in our local history book."
First Published January 4, 2007 12:00 am
