Pioneer dude with spikes

WEST NEWTON, Pa. – Those who use a popular hiking and biking trail should be glad it got a rifleman from the quirky sculptor Bill Secunda instead of the giant steel cockroaches he crafted for Texas.

The self-taught Butler, Pa., artist designed 12-foot likenesses of those pesky bugs for the ABC Pest Control building in Dallas. Secunda also planted a giant fire-breathing monster in a swamp in Alabama, his Web site indicates.

His new statue at the Yough River Trail entrance along Route 136 in West Newton, Pa., seems tame in comparison. It’s an odd caricature of a squatty pioneer man forged in railroad spikes.

To earn the commission, Secunda had to come up with a piece that is reflective of the heritage of this small town along the Youghiogheny River.

His subject apparently pays tribute to a band of pioneers under Gen. Rufus Putnam that briefly stopped here in 1788 to build boats before continuing on to explore the Northwest Territory. The rusting spikes Secunda used to build the guy speak to the abandoned rail line that was ripped up to create the 43-mile trail that is among the best sections of the Great Allegheny Passage.

We’re so lucky to have this trail in my part of the woods. I guess we’re lucky to have the Secunda statue, too, but it kind of reminds me of Big Jim, the giant folk art cowboy in Bentleyville, Pa.

Repro train station

Take another look at the train station in the photo, above, because it’s not a beautifully restored version of itself.

This is a view of the brand new West Newton Station, rebuilt with modern construction materials as the latest addition to a hiking and biking trail.

The Regional Trails Corp. invested $750,000 to create a life-size model of the old Pennsylvania and Lake Erie Railroad station in West Newton, an historic borough along the Youghiogheny River in Southwestern Pennsylvania. Contractors even used the original blueprints to recreate the building on the same site as the one that was destroyed in a fire in the 1970s.

The building, which opened seven months ago, serves as a visitor center for the group that developed the Yough River Trail, which is part of the Great Allegheny Passage. The network of trails stretches for 150 miles between Pittsburgh and Cumberland, Md., and attracts 700,000 visitors a year. It’s a great park, and those of us who live nearby are so lucky to have it in our backyard.

And, West Newton is a great place to start a journey on the abandoned rail line. The borough and its Colonial and Victorian houses more resembles a quaint village in New England than part of America's industrial rust belt.

The original settlement was named Simrall’s Ferry, and later Robb’s Ferry for Isaac Robb, who laid the town out in 1794. It’s first and biggest industry was the Markle Paper Mill that opened in 1859 but eventually closed because it was polluting the river. The rail line arrive there in 1860.

Trail to a tragic story

People who walk or bike the Yough River Trail through Rostraver Township find themselves surrounded by tranquility along the former Pennsylvania and Lake Erie Railroad.

Many pass through the area near Cedar Creek Park in Westmoreland County without ever knowing that the tunnels under the path are part of an old coal mine with a story that is anything but peaceful.

Nineteen miners were will killed there in a methane gas explosion in June 1901, even though a company boss had posted a danger signal before the disaster. The warning, however, was ripped down by another boss who apparently was more concerned about coal profits than the employees. That boss would also perish inside Port Royal Mine No. 2.

Crowds were kept back from the portal by ropes. Relatives and friends of the missing miners were warned that the gas could set off another explosion that would rock the area like an earthquake, according to a story published at the time in The New York Times.

But that didn’t hold back the Rev. Carroll of nearby Smithton who volunteered to lead a search party into the portal. The company warned him against going into the mine about the same time that a second blast took the lives of 10 or more rescuers, the newspaper reported.

Seven bodies would be recovered before the mine was flooded and sealed four months after the initial explosion. The bodies were found side-by-side in what the reporter referred to as the “death chamber.” Some men were still holding their lamps or mining tools when they died. Other bodies were forever entombed inside the deep mine.

The Rostraver Township Historical Society has erected a new memorial to these mining victims alongside the popular hiking and biking trail. For more information on mining history in Westmoreland, check out Ancestry.com. It just may startle you to find out how many other miners met their deaths there over the years.


(Captions: An unidentified man strolls along the Yough River Trail in the area above the abandoned Port Royal Mine No. 2. A new memorial to the mining disaster in Rostraver Township that has been placed beside the trail. Please note that the Beveridge name was spelled wrong on the honor roll, and that the victim was not related to the author of this blog.)

Trim your beer belly here

The Yough River Trail is the greatest stress reliever that I have found since kicking cigarettes.
Within a few minutes after hitting the hiking and biking path along an abandoned rail line due south of Pittsburgh, my nerves settle into a tunnel of green and all the nature it affords. The quiet is occasionally broken by the exciting shrill of an Amtrak train that follows the rails on the opposite side of the Youghiogheny River.

We are fortunate in Southwestern Pennsylvania to be home to this park, which is part of the Great Allegheny Passage, a 316 mile trail that connects Cumberland, Md., and Pittsburgh. A newcomer should expect adventure, especially in the remote sections. One day, a squirrel fell out of a tree and landed in the spokes of my bicycle’s front tire. He was stunned, but his injuries did not appear to be life threatening. Another time, I had to turn back after scouting a rabid red fox about 50 yards ahead of my handlebars. You also can explore the village of Whitsett, where there are ancient Anica Mine and Coke Works buildings. One is surrounded with poisen ivy and leads to a scary, dangerous portal into the deep mine that should have been sealed a long time ago to keep out the kids.


This place, meanwhile, is home to wildflowers and butterflies in their natural settings rather than in some habitat garden built in a city park.


A dad sporting a mullet can take his son here to bond over some fishing.


You never know, you might even encounter a cowboy out of his element.


But, the best part.....