Click Here to Return to Milestones
T. Frank Covert also reminds us of the time
when boys got into good old-fashioned fisticuffs (fights) and
didn't have to worry about being bitten, eyes gouged, or other
dirty tactics and, most of all, the police carting them all away
and pressing charges.
Now, let's get it clear that this writer
doesn't condone such activities. But, I thought it interesting
especially when Covert said, "There were no serious casualties."
This was the last documented great fight between the boys of Beaver
Falls and New Brighton. They were quite common then.
He points out, "There had been a lapse" but when the Tenth Street Bridge was being built in 1890-91, a crowd "from each town met on the uncompleted structure. Big talk, banter, and boasts would lead to hostilities. It went on for a long time with both sides being augmented by fresh arrivals. The neighbors, after seeing bolts, nuts and rivets flying, then called the police."
This has shades of the Monaca-Rochester Bridge rivalry.
This brings us to the bridge itself. The
corporation responsible for building it carefully surveyed where
it should end up and then bought the two lots on the New Brighton
side. All was going as planned. But, something went wrong.
When the bridge was finished it came in
two lots and the old canal bed north of what was purchased from
a James Patterson. Covert adds in a January 3, 1928 column that
"The bridge, as it exists today, has been built over a canal
bridge and onto lots that have never been acquired. It has never
been resolved."
Of course it has been resolved today since the bridge was demolished a few years ago.