One hundred and twenty five years ago, it was just a part of the Townsend farm—nothing more than just a deep ravine with a creek in it, its’ slopes adorned with a grove of fruit trees. In 1895, a town was built on the site. But the grove and ravine stayed and a gazebo and picnic stand were built there in the woods. The town’s citizens celebrated July 4th there.

For a while.

By the 1920’s the Grove, as it was called, was being filled in with ash and slag from what had become the world’s largest mill just a few hundred yards away. Once filled in, the mill paid to have it turned into a recreation field for the town, and named for a popular superintendent at the mill named S.A. Davis.

A semi-pro baseball team, the Vandergrift Pioneers (a farm club for the Philadelphia Phillies) played there in the 1940s and early 1950s and at least two local men, Rudy Minarcin and Bill Smith, played for the team.

The local high school football team played there as well. Players from those days remember being scratched as they played from pieces of slag and ash coming up through the field.

Today football players from 1rst grade to 12th play there, just as their dads and granddads did, for Kiski teams on recently renovated Davis Field in Vandergrift.

Find out more about Davis Field, S. A. Davis, the Vandergrift Pioneers and the Grove in the online video program, "The Grove"

DEAR RETURNS: What was the "deer homicide" in the 1800s that was reported to be the last deer seen in Apollo for 100 years? In 1820 at Warren Ferry [probably between Apollo and East Vandergrift -ed.] Owen Jones smacked a deer with an oar as it swam the Kiski--it was the last killed in the area, according to a local newspaper article. The article, written in 1921, excitedly proclaimed that deer were seen in Apollo for the first time in a century at Roaring Run and the Jackson Farm and beginning to thrive.

The Grove Picnic & Shelter

SHAMROCK STEPPIN': The Upper Burrell Shamrocks, a national award-winning baton and drum team, began in 1951 as 28 girls marching behind a fire truck. Initially they were known as the "Upper Burrell Majorettes." As the group grew, a contest was held to name them, and "Shamrocks" was chosen to be their name. The group expanded so much by 1969, a parents organization was formed to help with the group. The Shamrocks by 1979 had traveled all over the nation, including Chicago, New York City and Dallas. They'd won over 200 first-place awards and had developed into a service organization as well as a baton and drum team.

POWERS THAT BE: Powers Run Road in Fox Chapel was named for the first settler in the area, James Powers. He probably came to the area in the mid-1780s or early 1790s. Some of the land in the area was what was called "Depreciation Lands", which were huge amounts of property given to Revolutionary War soldiers as pay in lieu of cash. Powers and his brother bought some of that land in 1797, and today his some of his descendants still live there on that land.

HEY SKIPPER!: In Freeport in 1854, George Garver built a keelboat named the Mary Ann, one of several the family operated as ferries over the Allegheny before Freeport's bridge. Many boats were built in Freeport during that period when river traffic and canal traffic was frequent. While some of Garver's boats were ferries, others made their way up and down the Allegheny and Ohio Rivers. These keel boats operated until around the 1800s when the Garver's Ferry Bridge was built to carry traffic across. It lasted until the 1950s when the current bridge was built (after the old one collapsed.)

HAIL TO THE CHIEF: Fawn Township as well as East and West Deer are so named because of one of Guyasuta’s right-hand men. One of Guyasuta's "sub-chiefs" was Chief Deer. Deer Township was named for him. The township was later divided into East Deer Township and West Deer Township. A third township was later carved off, and being the "child" of the two Deer, named Fawn Township.

FERRY SINKS: On the Kiski River near Leechburg in the early 1900s, the Hyde Park ferry sank late one night. Several men died. They had been on their way to a trolley stop across the river in Leechburg after leaving a Hyde Park tavern. The ferry, little more than a flat raft, was probably overweight and one corner dipped into the water, taken on enough to submerge one end. In the panic that followed, in the frenzy to make it to shore, several men from various river towns up and down the Kiski drowned.

MIRACLE MACHINE: First tested in New Kensington in 1970, it developed into the MRI, which permits doctors to harmlessly see inside a patient’s body. A scientist from a medical center in New York, Raymond Damadian, performed an experiment in New Kensington in June 1970 to prove his theory that a machine could be used to see cancerous tumors inside rats. The experiment worked. He developed the mechanism into the MRI (magnetic resonance imaging) scanner. It made molecules inside the body behave harmlessly in such a way to release radio waves, which were turned into images by a large computer. The machine he developed is now on display at the Smithsonian Institute. Two other men, Peter Mansfield and Paul Lauterbur later made the machine practical for medical purposes. These men were later awarded a Nobel prize while Damadian was overlooked, as of this writing. BLUNDER BLVD: So nicknamed due to a half-million dollar mistake some called the Nadine jam, Oakmont and Verona’s Allegheny River Blvd. opened in 1934. It was one of the first proposed linking highways between Pittsburgh and her surrounding suburbs. But a holdup occurred in the area of Nadine Road. The slopes of the Allegheny River were very sharp all the way to Washington Blvd. And the railroad and the water company owned land there, which had been overlooked by the County's Public Works director. By '32, the road was finished--except for the blundered, or bungled, section, which gave it the twin nicknames of "Blunder Boulevard" and "Bungle Boulevard." The road opened two years later after a half-million dollar solution--in the money of that day--but with today's traffic, no doubt some still think of the area just as 'fondly.'

DICE-Y GAS: One of People Gas's first underground storage facilities was at the Dice Farm, the area we know today as Holiday Park. "One of the earliest experiments in underground storage" of gas, according to the Plum history, "Where the Wild Plum Trees Grow," the land was originally a farm owned by Peter Dice. It was developed in 1940 into the storage site and now encompasses over seven acres of land, with over 3.1 billion cubic feet of room for natural gas. Very likely, prior to the storage facility, the land had been sites for oil and natural gas deposits.

THIRD USA TUNNEL: Just up the Conemaugh River from Saltsburg is the site of the THIRD tunnel ever built in America--and boats, not wagons, went through it. It was built in 1828 as part of the Pennsylvania Canal. Canals were a new thing in America at the time. The first two tunnels were built in Pennsylvania also, one seven years earlier and one only one year earlier. This tunnel was partially built in shale, and part of it collapsed not long after opening. The tunnel opening was buried in 1989 when an access road was built. The site is commemorated today by a marker on the West Penn Trail, a project of the Conemaugh Valley Conservancy.

CARNEGIE'S HEROES: 100 years ago, when a mine disaster killed two rescuers near Springdale/Cheswick, a tycoon established a Heroes Fund and Medal still given today. The Harwick mine disaster that killed 181 men in 1904 made a big impact on Andrew Carnegie. Already toying with the idea of some way to help or recognize those heroes injured as they tried to save someone, he heard in New York that two rescuers, Selwyn Taylor and Daniel Lyle, died in the tragedy when they tried to rescue men from mine. It galvanized Carnegie into giving 5 million dollars into a trust for heroes, a Hero Fund. He saw to it that the two men were recognized with gold medals posthumously and helped take care of the families. Today the Carnegie Hero Fund still carries out the tycoon's wishes. The medals are embossed with the Bible verse, "Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends" (John 15:13). A historical marker on Pittsburgh Street in Springdale commorates the birth of the Hero Fund.