00:00 - The following program was financed by a grant from America

00:04 - 250 A.

00:26 - Leechburg is located

00:27 - 35 miles northeast of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania,

00:30 - in southern Armstrong County, on the banks of the Monette District.

00:34 - Unofficially, Leechburg is 200 years old.

00:37 - Officially, the borough was incorporated on March 22nd of 1850.

00:41 - Leechburg really at this point is home.

00:44 - It's a snapshot to me of what small town life in Pennsylvania really is like

00:49 - and what it should be like.

01:00 - Settlement really took off down in the lower

01:02 - Kiski Valley, in the area of Leechburg around 1814.

01:06 - Leechburg is located in an area of what is known as the Konami's Salt.

01:11 - The Konami's salt was first discovered about 1795,

01:16 - 27 miles northeast of here in present day Salzburg, Pennsylvania.

01:21 - Salt was discovered coming up from brine seeps up there, and they would

01:24 - then boil that off to collect the salt crystals to preserve food.

01:29 - This was in the days before refrigeration.

01:31 - So they really had no other way to keep food

01:33 - during the winter period, during the salt production era.

01:37 - Leechburg was basically farming.

01:39 - The slope of the hill here was gentle enough that they could farm this area.

01:45 - So it had been cleared for wheat production, mostly, a little bit of

01:48 - cattle.

01:49 - The salt wells were primarily located to the east and west.

01:52 - They were drilling salt wells all the way down to about the mouth of the Allegheny.

01:56 - Leechburg had its first well drilled in 1814, and salt was critical

02:02 - for not only survival, but also for westward expansion.

02:05 - And, in times of war, it was also very important.

02:08 - Prior to the War of 1812 into the War of the Revolution in 1776,

02:14 - the United States got most of its salt from England.

02:17 - When the War of the Revolution broke out in the War of 1812,

02:20 - both times England cut the supply off.

02:23 - So to survive that war and both wars, really new supplies were needed.

02:27 - And those supplies were found in this valley where the quality of the brine

02:32 - was sufficiently higher than most other places.

02:37 - The Connemara salt would produce

02:39 - roughly a bushel of salt from 35 to 36 gallons of water.

02:44 - Other salt producing regions needed around 80 to 200 gallons.

02:48 - So the combination of the free port

02:52 - coal seam here and the density of the brine led to this

02:56 - becoming the third largest salt producing region in the 19th century

03:00 - and led to the establishment of a number of towns,

03:03 - including the Tyrone of Pennsylvania, just down river from here and,

03:08 - to the north. Salina and Salzburg,

03:10 - were very big producers in salt during the salt producing era.

03:15 - They were also in production of the Pennsylvania Canal.

03:19 - I was a state run project.

03:21 - And David Leach was a contractor on that project in Sharpsburg,

03:25 - Pennsylvania, where he had a contract to build some bridge abutments.

03:29 - Now, they had determined a need for a feeder dam,

03:33 - five miles up the Kiska Menendez River, to supply water

03:37 - for the canal from basically Freeport, Pennsylvania to Pittsburgh.

03:42 - The route of the canal hadn't actually been determined at that time

03:46 - as to whether it would proceed north to Kittanning or east, up to Kiski Valley.

03:52 - So the feeder dam location, David Leach, had arrived here around 1826

03:57 - to investigate that location and draft a bid for the project.

04:01 - Now, when he arrived here and saw the salt producing industry

04:06 - and the activity going on, and was able to get a lay of the land

04:10 - and looked at the location, he had determined that

04:14 - this would be a good location for a settlement.

04:16 - It would be on the canal.

04:17 - Whether as a feeder canal or as the mainline canal

04:21 - didn't really matter, and there was plenty of export to come from Leechburg,

04:26 - and the lay of the land was suitable to, you know, to construct a town on.

04:30 - So David Leach drafted and submitted that bid and won that contract

04:35 - to build lock number 11 and dam number one of the Pennsylvania mainline Canal.

04:40 - Simultaneously, he approached the landowners in Leechburg,

04:44 - Joseph Hunter and Matthew Shields, and worked up an agreement to purchase

04:48 - about 357 acres from them on which he would construct the town.

04:53 - He had access to the dam's water supply,

04:55 - so he knew he could establish industry, and there was plenty of export to be had.

05:00 - Now, he had a partner with him when he got here, a fellow contractor

05:03 - named George Trucks, who also did work on the Pennsylvania Canal.

05:08 - Trucks, however, became

05:11 - impatient with the arrangement and he demanded to see the article

05:16 - of agreement with him and Matthew Shields and Joseph Hunter

05:19 - and David Leach for the purchase,

05:21 - because Hunter wasn't able to produce the title in a timely manner.

05:25 - And rather than grant some more time, he chucked it

05:29 - into the wood stove in the cabin and walked out on the deal.

05:32 - So Leach finished the agreement himself.

05:34 - He paid $1,500, for the entirety of the 357 acres,

05:39 - and he began to lay out the town around the same time

05:43 - they were working on the construction of dam number one and lock number 11.

05:51 - Pennsylvania Canal

05:52 - was the largest project

05:56 - the state of Pennsylvania undertook.

05:59 - And it really is responsible for the shaping

06:01 - of the entirety of the borough of Leechburg.

06:03 - Without it, I don't think the town exists now.

06:06 - Leach really did embrace the canal and the canal economy.

06:10 - He had made the decision that he was going to open

06:13 - his own line of boats for traffic on the canal.

06:17 - Rather than pursue civil engineering.

06:20 - And he was the first commercial line in, in operation on the Pennsylvania Canal

06:25 - in about 1829, when it opened for traffic from Blairsville to Pittsburgh.

06:29 - He was not the first boat on the canal.

06:31 - That boat had come from Apollo while he was working

06:34 - on this line of transport that he was developing.

06:38 - He made these these trips east and west along the canal route,

06:42 - and he recruited other forwarders, teamsters, steamship operators

06:46 - and whatnot to create what would become De Leech and Co.

06:51 - That generated a single

06:53 - point of contact shipping industry.

06:57 - It was sort of, the first of its kind.

06:59 - I can't say for certainty that was the absolute first,

07:02 - but it was certainly the, the best example of one.

07:05 - And what what they did was they had agents

07:08 - in anywhere from Boston all the way down to Louisiana,

07:11 - and you could simply mark your destination of your package with the Leech

07:15 - and co and the name of the city that you wanted to get it to.

07:18 - And D Leech and Co's agents would pick it up

07:21 - and transported to the next shipper along the line.

07:25 - And this is an accent to the next.

07:26 - And the Pennsylvania Canal served as the main trunk line of the entire network.

07:31 - But there were numerous forwarders of all types along

07:34 - the entirety of the scheme, and each one of them would get a cut of that profit

07:39 - as they move that freight to having been partnered with each other.

07:43 - So David Leech on the Pennsylvania Canal, he had traveled the canal

07:48 - and acquired land to construct his own warehouses

07:52 - and boat yards and even railcar yards on the Allegheny Portage

07:55 - so that he would have access to his equipment

07:58 - at his time and his control to get these things moved.

08:01 - So it ended up being the largest,

08:04 - it was the preferred way to get immigrants from Ellis Island.

08:07 - Was D Leech and Co to Pittsburgh and west to Saint Louis.

08:11 - As the westward expansion pushed on.

08:30 - David Leach centered the towns around the canal.

08:32 - It was not unlike today, when a town or an establishment

08:37 - of shopping center pops up around the highway.

08:41 - The main center of the business district was adjacent to the canal.

08:47 - Supporting businesses were located the next block down on Market Street.

08:51 - And the industry that would be powered by the dam's

08:53 - water was located right downstream from the dam.

08:57 - They all had their little districts, and then residences

09:00 - and churches got pushed out a little bit further.

09:02 - David Leach's first endeavor, the first thing

09:05 - he constructed in the town, of course, was the supply store.

09:09 - That store is there to supply not only his contract workers, but the the residents.

09:14 - He's trying to attract.

09:16 - He also established a very early on, a school in 1828,

09:20 - six years ahead of the Free School Act of Pennsylvania of 1834.

09:24 - So education was important to attract settlers to his town.

09:28 - He was responsible for the construction of the post office,

09:31 - at which he was appointed first postmaster.

09:34 - At that role, I think he had until 1850, when he was first elected mayor.

09:39 - He could not serve both posts at the same time legally.

09:42 - He constructed four brick homes

09:45 - and a number of other canal supporting establishments.

09:50 - With the advent of the railroad, and especially the chartering

09:53 - of the Pennsylvania Railroad in 1846.

09:56 - The canal was pretty much doomed.

10:00 - They knew that David Leach knew

10:02 - that the state of Pennsylvania knew that it had yet to turn a profit.

10:06 - Even before the railroads had emerged.

10:08 - So as the canal waned

10:10 - and the railroad became more and more technologically sufficient,

10:15 - the state

10:16 - tried several times to just dispose of it.

10:19 - The only bidder for the Pennsylvania Canal was the Pennsylvania Railroad.

10:23 - They paid a sum of $7.5 million.

10:27 - In 1857, for the entirety of the canal

10:31 - and the agreement reached was that the canal

10:36 - that must be left to operate until the railroad was poised to take it over.

10:41 - Now, in Leechburg, that era lasted longer than anywhere else.

10:47 - And that's owing to the fact that the Pennsylvania Railroad's main line

10:50 - from Philadelphia to Harrisburg shadowed the original Pennsylvania Canal Railroad.

10:55 - So it was like for, like, replacement.

10:58 - But once you got past Altoona and then the holidays Burg,

11:03 - there was really there was a separation of routes.

11:06 - And they separated at, Torrence, Pennsylvania, outside of Blairsville.

11:11 - And the canal went through the Kiski Economia Valley,

11:14 - and the railroad went overland towards Pittsburgh, a different direction.

11:18 - And because of that, they could not close the western division of the canal

11:22 - until the railroad was built from Blairsville to Pittsburgh.

11:27 - To accomplish that,

11:30 - was quite a feat.

11:31 - Because they had to build that from scratch.

11:34 - Whereas in the rest of the network, they had infrastructure already in place.

11:37 - Now, at the same time, the Pennsylvania Railroad had been

11:43 - withholding payment of what state called the tonnage tax.

11:47 - And the tonnage tax was a tax applied

11:50 - to canal freight boats to raise funds for the repair of the canal,

11:54 - because there was damage caused by heavy freight boats as they came through.

11:58 - So the Pennsylvania Railroad argue that since that tax

12:01 - isn't going to repair their railroad, why should they pay it?

12:04 - And they had a good case.

12:07 - They did not pay any of the tax while the matter was heard in the courts.

12:10 - And by the time a decision was reached

12:12 - that the tax did not need to be applied to the railroad.

12:16 - They had amassed $850,000 in back taxes.

12:21 - Now, since the tax had applied legally in the period before the court's decision,

12:26 - they did still owe the $850,000,

12:29 - but the state gave them the option that they would commute that tax

12:34 - if the railroad would invest that some into failed railroad charters.

12:38 - So that was a win for the Pennsylvania Railroad,

12:40 - because the Northwest Charter would give them the ability

12:44 - to close the Western division of the canal and invest in themselves.

12:48 - They opened the Western Pennsylvania Railroad, through the Kiski

12:52 - Economy Valley, in the spring of 1866.

12:56 - They had constructed it on the opposite bank of the canal.

13:00 - And brought it all the way down to Freeport.

13:03 - And in the winter, between 65 and 66, when the Canal of Norway been closed,

13:07 - they had backfilled it

13:09 - and put the railroad grade on top of it and completed that project that marked the

13:13 - the final and of the mainline

13:17 - canal in Pennsylvania.

13:30 - The end of the Civil

13:31 - War, coincided with the closing of the canal

13:34 - and brought about the second Industrial Revolution.

13:38 - So as men were returning home from service and factories

13:42 - were ramping up and production was was increasing,

13:45 - many of those gentlemen had been looking for work opportunities.

13:49 - And that's when the coal barons

13:51 - began to arrive here to look into the Freeport Tunnel.

13:55 - And the first one that arrives

13:58 - here was a gentleman by the name of Joseph Cranfield.

14:01 - After the war, Joseph Granville became very active in the coal

14:04 - fields in Squirrel Hill.

14:06 - In outside of Pittsburgh.

14:08 - And he had opened two mines there

14:11 - and was doing fairly well as a collier down there.

14:14 - And he made the decision

14:17 - to come to Leechburg

14:19 - when he sold those two mines in 1868.

14:23 - He used the proceeds from the sale of his mines in squirrel Hill

14:27 - to buy the undeveloped lands of Leechburg from David Leach's

14:30 - son, Addison Leach, who was still in the area at the time.

14:33 - So he put the lands up for sale.

14:35 - And that's what brought Joseph Granville here.

14:39 - Beall bought the undeveloped lands and began

14:41 - to amass coalfields outside of town.

14:44 - As much as he could along Pennsylvania Railroad.

14:47 - And he opened his first mind.

14:49 - I believe 1868 or 69, and began extraction there.

14:53 - Joseph Granville really wanted to find himself a customer

14:57 - that would, make use of his coal more locally,

15:01 - where it would be more lucrative for him to extract it.

15:04 - And transported it shorter distances.

15:06 - So in around 1870, Joseph Grant Beal convinced

15:11 - an iron master by the name of William Rogers,

15:15 - who had been working in Apollo at the time,

15:18 - to locate his new tin mill here in Leechburg, Pennsylvania.

15:23 - William

15:23 - Rogers was an iron master from Wales, and he had grown up

15:26 - in the tent industry there before moving to Pittsburgh in the 1850s.

15:30 - And it was his ambition to bring tin plate to America.

15:35 - Joseph Grant Bell secured the lots for him and the coal supply.

15:39 - And by 1872,

15:42 - the Siberian ironworks went into production here in Leechburg, PA,

15:46 - one of the earliest, if not the earliest tin plate manufacturer in the country,

15:51 - with with the coming of the Siberian ironworks to Leechburg,

15:55 - the steel industry actually became more of an economic driver

15:59 - and a contributor to the state and country than than the coal resources did here.

16:04 - The Siberian ironworks, of course,

16:06 - with its innovations in natural gas and its early production of tinplate,

16:10 - did help with the establishment of a number of other tin mills.

16:13 - And after the McKinley Tariff Act of 1890, was part of the reason

16:18 - why the entirety of tin plate production was transferred from Wales to America.

16:24 - Within the course of 3 to 4 years.

16:27 - But more

16:28 - so what was learned at the rolling mills

16:31 - of the Siberian Ironworks really led to the

16:35 - founding of a number of other industries in the valley,

16:38 - one to include the Hyde Park Foundry, which specialized in making tin mills.

16:44 - And the other was the Leechburg Foundry, which did the same.

16:47 - The Leechburg Foundry was founded by former Siberian Ironworks employee

16:52 - George Mestre, and George Mestre eventually grew that into the mess.

16:56 - The machine Company in Homestead, PA.

16:59 - It was one of the largest foundries in the world,

17:02 - at over a mile long, and it occupied at least 30 acres.

17:06 - It gave employment to somewhere around 3 to 4000 people

17:10 - and persisted until around 1983.

17:14 - The master machine company

17:18 - was highly innovative and,

17:20 - very crucial to the winning of World War two.

17:24 - It at the

17:25 - same time, coal baron Alfred Hicks,

17:28 - after departing Leechburg,

17:30 - founded Steel Company in Brackenridge called Alleghany Steel

17:34 - and while he was doing that, there were gentlemen up here

17:38 - who had come from the Siberian ironworks and from mills in Kittanning,

17:42 - and they founded what was called the West Leechburg Steel Company.

17:46 - And the West Leechburg Steel Company was right across the river from Leechburg,

17:49 - and they were all involved heavily in specialty metals.

17:54 - Allegheny Steel and West Leechburg Steel Company eventually merged

17:57 - during the Great Depression, to form Allegheny Ludlam Steel.

18:02 - So Allegheny let them steel,

18:05 - still produces specialty metals to this day.

18:07 - And they had two mills here in Leechburg, Pennsylvania.

18:11 - Where specialty metals were produced.

18:12 - One was at the West Leechburg plant that had been founded in the 1890s.

18:17 - And the other one was at the Bagdad plant.

18:20 - A little bit further down the river that, made silicon strip steel

18:23 - for electrical purposes.

18:25 - Now, both of those mills persisted long after the industry's decline

18:29 - in Pittsburgh.

18:30 - The West Leechburg steel plant closed in 2006,

18:35 - followed by the shuttering of the Bagdad plant in 2016.

18:38 - But there were a lot of innovations, in the steel industry

18:42 - that had come out of this area.

18:44 - One of the industries that was founded here during the steel

18:47 - era, it wasn't directly tied to industry at all.

18:51 - Would be the Schenley Distillery.

18:53 - The Schenley distillery was located just about five miles down

18:56 - the river from Leechburg, Pennsylvania, and it was

19:00 - founded around the turn of the century when, chemist

19:03 - by the name of Frank Sinclair had come through and taken a water sample

19:07 - from an underground spring in the area, finding that the PA and calcium

19:11 - contents were perfect for distillation of spirits.

19:15 - Sinclair had

19:17 - acquired the land from Mary Shelley of Pittsburgh,

19:21 - and he did name his distillery after Mary Shanley.

19:24 - Well, she was a well known philanthropist in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

19:27 - So the distillery took Mary's name and it was established

19:32 - mostly for the distillation of whiskey in the beginning.

19:35 - It changed hands a few times.

19:36 - It came up against prohibition, during the prohibition era,

19:41 - Sinclair sold out and another buyer came in

19:45 - and they used it as a concentration warehouse

19:48 - because during prohibition, you could get whiskey, by prescription.

19:53 - So they weren't allowed to distill, but they were allowed to mix.

19:56 - So they maintained a concentrate and mixed it for prescription,

20:01 - much like any pharmacy does today.

20:03 - Owing to the contents of the distillery, it was kept under police

20:06 - and guard dog protection during prohibition.

20:09 - But having been able to do that, they survived prohibition quite well.

20:14 - And after the end of prohibition, they would work

20:17 - to expand the facility to over 60 acres.

20:20 - And I think they had 67 aging houses and other associated buildings.

20:25 - And, they employed in the 1950s

20:28 - and 60s, upwards of 3 to 4000 people.

20:32 - They really, really did get, get large.

20:36 - The problem for the distillery was the changing tastes of the American consumer.

20:41 - And in the 1970s, drinkers started to migrate towards beer.

20:47 - And Schenley was not a brewery.

20:49 - They were a distillery.

20:50 - And that slowly eroded them, as did mechanization.

20:54 - And coupled with the

20:56 - decline in sales, the size of the plant

20:59 - that they had built to not survive, beyond 1983.

21:04 - And in November of 1983, they kept their last bottle.

21:08 - But during their run, they had employed thousands

21:11 - and thousands of local residents.

21:13 - It was it was a good job for,

21:15 - you know, young people out of school would take that job.

21:18 - And it quite often housewives worked work thereafter.

21:22 - After the war and, during World War two, I believe that Schenley switched over

21:27 - to making industrial grade alcohol to support the war effort.

21:32 - I, I think if I'm correct, they had turned out somewhere around 33.5 million

21:36 - gallons of industrial grade alcohol that was shipped off to the military

21:41 - in support of the war.

22:06 - The Leechburg Area Museum and Historical Society

22:09 - is located in the David F Leech House in Leechburg, Pennsylvania.

22:13 - This was one of the homes that was built by David Leach.

22:17 - It was given to his son, David Athletes in 1849

22:21 - as a wedding present when he married Rebecca Mcelhenny.

22:26 - Now, unfortunately, David athletes passed away

22:28 - just a year later, and the house was then deeded over to the widow.

22:32 - The Leechburg Area Museum and Historical Society was founded in 1976

22:37 - as a bicentennial project when they organized on

22:40 - March 22nd of 1976 to coincide

22:44 - with the official incorporation date of The Burrow.

22:48 - They did not have a home.

22:49 - One thing that they wanted to have was a museum, where they could display

22:53 - artifacts of Leechburg past, and they found that in a small apartment

22:59 - building that had been constructed

23:00 - on the same grounds as the David F Leech House in around 1915.

23:05 - Now, at the time, the David F Leach House

23:08 - was a dentist office.

23:10 - It had been acquired in 1973 by dentist doctor Courtney Bischoff,

23:15 - who did extensive renovations to stabilize the building and improve it.

23:19 - Mechanicals, roofing, wiring, everything.

23:23 - He invested some of $90,000 over a three phase plan to get the building stable.

23:29 - Mr. Bishop did care very much about

23:31 - Leechburg history as well as his dental practice.

23:35 - So when they were looking for their home doctor,

23:38 - Bischoff offered them the small apartment building on the grounds,

23:43 - free of charge for them to carry on their mission of

23:46 - preserving Leechburg history and telling Leechburg stories.

23:50 - Now, when Doctor Bischoff retired a few years later,

23:54 - he passed the practice to his son, Doctor Courtney Bischoff junior

23:58 - and he carried out the practice

24:01 - until about 1990, when it was time for him to retire.

24:05 - And upon his retirement, he was generous enough to sell the building

24:09 - to the Leechburg Area Museum and Historical Society

24:12 - for the sum of $50,000, which was well below what they had invested in it.

24:16 - During the course of their dental practice.

24:19 - They moved in to here in 1991

24:23 - and have continued to expand and improve the grounds.

24:27 - Since that time.

24:28 - From the outside, the Leechburg Museum, still retains much of its original look.

24:33 - Its same 1830s, the somewhat

24:36 - federal style building, but not entirely.

24:39 - It is

24:41 - well maintained, but nondescript.

24:44 - The display areas are all kept on the inside.

24:48 - When you come through the front doors of the Leechburg Area Museum,

24:51 - the first thing you're going to see is our industry room,

24:53 - where we highlight our steel and coal heritage.

24:57 - Schenley Industries is highlighted there.

25:00 - One of the biggest industries in our town over the years.

25:04 - And then as you come through, we have display set up for the canal

25:08 - and for David Leach and for David Leach, a shipping company.

25:12 - Delete and go.

25:14 - After that, the history gets a little less industrial.

25:18 - And we have rooms devoted to our Market Street businesses.

25:22 - Leechburg has always been sort of a mom and pop run town.

25:25 - We don't have many chains here.

25:28 - Everything is locally owned, something we're very proud of.

25:31 - And we also have rooms dedicated to our fraternal organizations,

25:35 - our churches, our high school.

25:38 - High school alumni and high school sports are accounted for.

25:41 - We have displays set up for transportation and natural disasters.

25:47 - Our military veterans are honored with a room of their own.

25:50 - As long as our police, fire and other civil services

25:55 - that we've had here in the town over the years.

25:57 - I can't really put my finger on one thing.

26:00 - It would be my favorite thing about the history of Leechburg.

26:04 - History is entangled.

26:06 - It's hard to learn about one thing without learning about

26:10 - everything that surrounded it at the time of its occurrence.

26:13 - I think my favorite thing is there is such a good mix

26:16 - here of industrial and transportation and cultural history.

26:21 - As well as the continued redevelopment of the area.

26:25 - You know, over the years,

26:26 - as the periods change, I think that is incredibly important

26:30 - to preserve and area's history.

26:33 - Without that link to the past. I

26:37 - your cultural identity suffers.

26:39 - I do think that if anything, the preservation of our history

26:44 - connects generations with their ancestors

26:48 - and gives them the cultural identity,

26:51 - of their own that,

26:52 - you know, is is reflected in the things that built the town. It's

26:56 - hard for people to care about anything if they don't understand its origins.

27:02 - Once you learn why things are the way they are

27:05 - and that your ancestors had a hand in that, their importance, you know, grows

27:11 - and and the preservation of them becomes more important to the people.