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A Post Office was established at the Park Quarries where John H. Park was Post Master; and ran a General Store. In 1885 the Park Fire Clay Company was organized at Park Quarries with J. 1. Park, President, W. A. Park, Treasurer, and John H. Park as Superintendent. There were two brickyards known as *1 and *2 Works, situated on the west side of Crow's Run. The capacity of the works was 250,000 bricks daily. There was a paving brick, burned hard and sized 4x4x9 inches and weighing 9 pounds. The employees numbered 350 men. These bricks were shipped to all points in the United States and Canada.
In 1884 John H. Park built a railroad from Park Quarries to connect with the Pennsylvania Railroad at Conway, PA, a distance over three miles, to serve their industries. It was called the North Shore Railroad. It later was sold to the Ohio River Junction Railroad Company of which William A. Park was treasurer.
The clay mines were opened to supply the clay for the brickyard and clay was also shipped as one of their products. A scarceness of labor became a problem and over twenty-five houses and a Negro church were built for their employees.
In May 19, 1902, the peace an tranquillity of the village was disturbed by a murder, the second ever to occur in Beaver County, by two of the Negro employees in a dispute over a woman of dissolute character. William M. Payne shot and killed Allen Austin in June of 1902. Payne was tried, convicted and hung on June 9, 1904 in the jail yard at Beaver by Sheriff Howard Bliss. At a place called Wallace City, situated at the crossroads of now Route #989 and the Freedom-Freeport Road, near the headwaters of Crow's Run, an oil boom started in 1900. The first well drilled on the Robert Wallace farm produced 1400 barrels per day and before it was brought under control, thousands of gallons flowed down Crow's Run to the Ohio River. The well with the largest production, 2600 barrels per day, was drilled on the Whipple farm. Thirty wells were drilled on the Stewart farm, seventeen on the Whipple farm, twenty-two on the Kramer farm, and seventeen on the Wallace farm. Others were Mangan, McElhaney, Stewart, Back, and Landis farms. Three pipelines were laid and 500 barrel storage tanks were built to market the oil. Natural gas was found on several farms, the one on the Kline farm was still producing in 1950. Wallace City took its name from the first well drilled on the Robert Wallace farm, and although it was made up of the usual service buildings such as boarding houses, blacksmith shops, livery stables, and other temporary buildings associated with the industry, no permanent residences were ever erected. It never even became a village or a hamlet.
The oil boom was of brief duration and when dry holes began to be filled, the business began to collapse, and by 1910 the derricks and buildings were being torn down and began to disappear. Today in 1970, there is nothing visible to remind us of oil wells, or Wallace City. Mother nature has reclaimed the land again, the crossroads are still there but they are paved now instead of axel deep in mud.
During the oil boom at Wallace City, the Park brothers realized the need for transportation. They extended their North Shore Railroad on up Crow's Run over three miles from their stone quarries to Wallace City. In order to do so, they had to blast two tunnels through solid rock, one about one-fourth mile long. Their plans were to extend the railroad on to Callery Junction, PA, and connect with the Pittsburgh and Western Railroad at that point. After the collapse of the oil boom, they decided not to extend the railroad any further. The upper No. 2 brickyard closed in 1919. On June 28, 1924, a hurricane which struck the area of Beaver County, caused tremendous damage to property, caused a flood at Crow's Run that washed out sections of the Railroad tracks, storage buildings, and caused large piles of bricks stored for shipment, to topple into the stream. It was a severe loss to the owners.
In 1924, the cement industry began to dominate the paving industry and together with the depression at that time, the No. 1 and last brickyard closed its operations. The brick kilns and buildings were sold as salvage. The Borough of Freedom purchased a number of them and paved many of its streets with the bricks. The balance of them were sold to a real estate firm in Ambridge, PA
The last business venture of the Park brothers was the attempt to construct an inter-urban trolley line between the Beaver Valley and Butler, PA
In 1905 and 1906, rails were laid in Freedom on Fourth Avenue between Second and Seventh Streets. In Rochester, the rails entered Case Street via Pinney Street, Connecticut Avenue, Jefferson Street, and left town via New York Avenue and northward ending at the borough line. The line also required a bridge in Freedom between Seventh Street and Ninth Street across Eighth Street and Dutchman's Run. Due to rival competition and difficulty in obtaining rights of way, this business venture was abandoned with tremendous loss. It was the last business venture of John H. Park. He died in 1933. His only son, William H. Park, (born June 13, 1882 died June 20, 1968), remained on the homestead. He married June 12, 1916 to Lena Evelyn Keiber, a registered nurse, born in Lincoln, Nebraska, August 1, 1891. They had one son, William H. born 1919, died 1939. Today Mrs. William H. Park, Evelyn, to her many friends, lives in the residence adjacent to where the Park Quarry store and post office once stood. She has, with her keen memory and gracious manner, supplied much of the information which make up this history. To her, I am most grateful.
Other accounts of this history are to be found interspersed in the vari,ous histories of Beaver County listed: Caldwell's Atlas 1876, Warner's History of Beaver County 1888, Book of Biographies 1899, Bausman's 1904, Genealogical and Personal History of Beaver County 1914.
All these events took place in Crow's Run area. Today, to traverse the same region, one would find nothing visible to remind us of a once very busy industrial community. Nature has reclaimed it.
It has been the purpose of this writer to
place the various events in their proper
sequence to enable the reader to follow the course of events as
they occurred.