Growing up in Clearfield, PA.

By

Jess Sweely

I was reviewing Facebook posts recently, and I noticed a group reminiscing about Clearfield , PA. That started me thinking about my experiences during the period from about 1949 to 1956.

I was born in Clearfield in 1938. My father was employed by the New York Central Railroad, and I spent my very early years living in Jersey Shore, then Cherry Tree, and finally, in 1949, we moved back to Clearfield where I went to the 6th through 12th grades. Junior High was across from the old Senior High School and next to the town library. Junior High consisted of grades 7 through 9 and high school was 10th through 12th. . We were the last class to graduate from the old Senior High in 1956, before the move to a new consolidated school.

I pulled out my Bison yearbook for 1956, and looked at the colleges that our high school teachers had attended. We had teachers that had graduated from Columbia University, New York University, Dickinson, University of Pennsylvania, Syracuse, Bucknell, Vassar, George Washington University, University of Pittsburgh, Penn State, Lock Haven State Teachers, and Indiana State Teachers College.

I am not sure you could find more competent and qualified teachers anywhere. The quality of teaching was quite high and they were always available to help you. However, when arriving at college, I found that I was behind in math and science, compared to those students from the Philadelphia or Pittsburgh areas. They had more advanced courses in high school, then was provided to us.

Looking through the 1956 “Bison” I found that there were 224 in my Senior class, 118 females and 106 males, 51 in College Prep, 60 in General Education, and the balance in Vocational and other.

Those who lived in the city limits had to walk to and from school, as well as walk home for lunch. We were not allowed to bring a brown bag lunch. Only those who lived outside of the city limits, and rode the school bus, were able to do that.

There were two school systems in Clearfield. The Public System and the Catholic System (St. Francis). Clearfield was a blue collar town with a population of around 9,300 in 1950. The major industries were the New York Central Railroad, Harbison-Walker Brick Refractory, Robinson Sewer Pipe, Clearfield Furs, The Clearfield Machine Shop and Kurtz Bros. There were also many other small businesses that met the needs of the community.

The first three industries were located in the East End. Most of the residents of the East End were 2nd generation Italians, and worked in these industries.

My family was German and Scots-Irish, and third generation railroaders. We lived in the East End, as did my Grandfather on my Mother’s side, because of closeness to the railroad yard.

As I look back, I believe growing up in a small town in Central Pennsylvania was beneficial in instilling my value system. We didn’t have the distractions from video games or social media. We stayed outside until dark playing with our peers. Everyone knew everyone. There was very little crime. This was pre-television, pre- drugs and pre-internet.

When television was introduced to the area in the early 1950’s, it was through a cable that was run on the electric poles. Clearfield sits between some mountains/hills, and a normal antenna could not pick up the signal. An entrepreneur (I believe Rosselli’s TV) put a large antenna on top of one of the hills and ran a cable around the town on electric poles. You could only receive one channel, Johnstown, and it was very “snowy” but it was the beginning of something innovative. I believe the cost was around $5.00 a month.

Most homes heated with coal, and we had a coal bin in our basement that would hold one to two tons of coal. There was soft coal and hard coal. Soft coal made more ashes than hard coal, but was cheaper, around $4 to $5.00 a ton. We heated our small (maybe 800 s.f.) house for about $10 to $15.00 a year.

There was an alley behind our house, and we would dump the ashes in the alley. This was also pre-air conditioning. If it got hot in the summer we opened the windows and used fans to cool off. Most people kept there blinds closed during the day to try to keep the home cooler.

Fullington Auto Bus had the contract for the school buses, and they also ran a public bus to the West Side and the East End from the Courthouse. The cost was about $.05 per trip. It ran from early morning through about ten or eleven o’clock at night.

There were railroad tracks through the center of town that carried coal trains from the coal mines around Barnesboro and Clymer through Clearfield to Williamsport, Pa. Some of those trains were 200 cars long. The West Branch of the Susquehanna River ran through town, and separated the East End from the West Side. The railroad yards and the brick yard and sewer pipe companies were on the east/south side of the river. As a result, the tracks had to go through the center of the town.

Clearfield’s New York Central rail yard had a “Round House” where there was a “Turn Table” that coal fired locomotives could be placed on and then revolved to a specific track inside the round house where repair work could be accomplished. Eventually the coal fired locomotives were replaced by diesel locomotives.

The West Side was mostly residential but included the Clearfield Hospital with its Nursing School, and the Driving Park where the Fairgrounds were located, as well as the football field and the baseball diamond. In the summer the Clearfield County Fair was a huge attraction at the Driving Park and included the James E. Strates Mid-Way Carnival and Joey Chitwood Dare Devil cars and drivers. On Saturday evening there was usually a well-known entertainer that performed.

There was also what was referred to as “Up Town,” or along the river where many professionals , Doctors, Lawyers and Businessmen lived. These were larger and more opulent homes. This was also where a curve called “Deadman’s Curve” was located.

In the center of downtown Clearfield stood the Courthouse, Clearfield National Bank, Clearfield Trust Company, the Dimeling Hotel, and local businesses, such as Leitzsinger Department Store, Jacobson & Etzweiler, Murphy’s 5 and 10, Robinson’s Men Store, Cowder Pharmacy, Brown’s shoe store, the Ritz, Lyric and Roxy movie theaters, JC Penny, Brody’s Women’s store and the Clearfield Diner, among others.

I believe my first suit came from Jacobson & Etzweiler and my shoes from Brown’s. To get your size for shoes, you put your feet into a machine that used x-rays to determine your size.

There were also professional offices: Doctors, Dentists and Lawyers downtown The public library and the Junior and Senior High School and the YMCA and many churches were also downtown.

There were also a few car dealers in town including one next to my house, The Fred Diehl Motors Garage. There were two dairies in town, Clearfield Dairy and Miller’s Dairy. You could stop and get a milkshake, ice cream or milk. They also delivered milk, daily to your home, and put it in an insulated milk box on your porch. A regular stop for something to eat after an athletic event or school dance was the local hot dog shop at the bottom of Berry Hill. I think it was called “Elmers”but I am not sure.

Because Clearfield was a blue collar town, there were many bars and taverns and social clubs. The Sons of Italy (SOI) was located in the East End, while the Eagles, Moose and Elks were downtown. There were few real restaurants, except for the Dimeling Hotel or Clearfield Diner. There was also a gun shop, as fishing and hunting was popular in the area, and Bob’s Army Navy Surplus. I understand that Bob’s still exists today.

Clearfield lies essentially in the center of PA., and is surrounded by State Forest all the way North to the New York Border. Northwest of town was Elliott Park and Parker’s Dam. Both are state parks where you could picnic, hike and fish. You could also swim at Parker’s Dam. There was excellent hunting and fishing in the surrounding mountains.

The YMCA was the hub of most young folks’ social circle, including mine. There were dances on Friday Night after football games, and during the week there was swimming, basketball, bowling and other athletic endeavors.

Most of the churches also had Boy Scout Troops. I was in Troop 2 that was housed at the Presbyterian Church. One of the community activities that the Boy Scouts assisted with, was monitoring movement of aircraft across the area, from the roof-top of the Dimeling Hotel. There was a small hut on the top of the Dimeling Hotel that had a telephone in it that was connected directly to a central facility in Pittsburgh.

I spent approximately 4 hours a week, in the early 1950’s, manning that hut. Our job was to contact Pittsburgh anytime we heard or saw an aircraft. We would pick up the telephone and say unidentified aircraft flying whichever direction. There was a poster on the wall of the hut with various aircraft types, including the Russian bombers, and if we could identify the type of aircraft, we were to indicate it. This hut was manned 24 hours a day by volunteers.

I believe that this was part of the Civil Air Patrol during the Cold War era. Looking back, how stupid this was! There is no way that a Russian airplane could fly that distance to Central Pennsylvania without being detected.

In the 50’s , the town started to hold “Street Dances” in front of the Fire Hall on either Friday or Saturday evenings in the summer. The dances were primarily square dances with local country bands playing.

The stores in town closed Wednesday afternoons but stayed open until 9:00 PM on Saturday nights. On Saturday evening, in the early 1950’s, my Dad would put us all in the family car and drive downtown to try to get a parking space in front of Murphy’s 5 & 10 . We would sit in the car and my Dad would sit on the hood of the car, and visit with the shoppers he knew. This was our Saturday Night Outing.

I was able to get a paper route when I was in Junior High, and I delivered The Progress daily , except Sunday, to about 100 families in the downtown area and part of East End. If I remember, I made a nickel a paper a week delivering papers. Later on I was able to get a job in the summer at a local East End grocery store, Peteuil’s Market, where I stocked shelves, cleaned the meat cutting butcher blocks and delivered groceries.

One summer, I was able to apprentice on the New York Central Railroad as an electrician’s helper, and another summer I was able to work at Harbison-Walker brickyard as one of three college students that repaired the rail sidings that the brick yard was required to maintain. Just before summer ended, I was assigned to work in the clay silo, making sure that the clay was kept off of the sides of the silo. Looking back, that was a more dangerous job then I could ever have realized.

Strip mining in the areas bordering Clearfield became popular in the 1950’s. In the Black Moshannon area, outside of Phillipsburg, was the largest drag line in the world. At least it was proclaimed to be. You could drive 2 to 3 Euclid Trucks into the shovel. This became a tourist attraction, but it also made strip mining cost effective.

After an area was strip mined, there was a law that the coal company had to plant a certain quantity of trees. I remember participating in a number of these plantings as a Boy Scout.

There were no Interstate Highways through this part of Pennsylvania in the 1950’s. To get to Pittsburgh, or anywhere in Eastern Pennsylvania, was quite a trip. There was bus transportation by Greyhound Bus Service and Trailways. For rail passenger service, you had to travel to Altoona, where the Pennsylvania Railroad provided passenger service.

Today, the current population of Clearfield is approximately 5,962. In the 1950’s it was approximately 9,300. This reduction is similar to other small northeast towns that had been dependent on coal, the railroads, and other labor based business. As jobs disappeared, no new industry was able to replace it.

In the 1950’s, Quehanna, an area south of Clearfield was thought to be the next big thing for Clearfield. Curtiss-Wright Corporation , an aircraft manufacturer, purchased 8,597 acres from the State, and also leased from the state 42,596 acres, for a facility to conduct research in nuclear powered jet engines. In 1956 they expanded into Isotope work. It was anticipated that over 7,000 employees would eventually be employed.

However, by 1960 the Air Force decided to discontinue pursuing nuclear powered jet engines, and all came crumbling down. The facility has gone through many hands since, but not successfully, and what was left is a contaminated site.

My last year in high school, 1955-56, we had an undefeated football team and three state champion wrestlers. A number of our star athletes received athletic scholarships to college, and a number of us were fortunate to be able to go to college, as first generation students, by working our way through, or receiving minimal assistance through scholarships or grants.

The Senior Class always made their annual trip to Washington, D.C. in November. Our trip was over Thanksgiving . Seeing Washington was memorable, and it wasn’t until then, that I realized there was a whole new world out there that I knew very little about.

Clearfield was a wonderful place to grow up, but leaving, provided those of us that left with new opportunities. Opportunities that we could never have imagined possible.

I have only returned a handful of times to Clearfield after 1956 but I will never forget the experiences and opportunities growing up in this Central Pennsylvania town. Clearfield was the basis of my value system, and I am forever grateful.

I have lived and worked in Maryland, New York, Connecticut, North Carolina, Washington, D.C. , New York and Virginia but I will always remember growing up in Clearfield. I have traveled for business as well as personally throughout the United States, as well as Europe and the Far East, but I have always tried to remember where I came from.

Jess Sweely

Madison, Virginia

September 4, 2023

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