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Last week, I was invited to speak at the Weir High Class of 1946 reunion at Williams Country Club. The group, although small, was warm and inviting. My grandmother, Lois Carpini, is a member of the class and my mother and I attended the event with her.
The group was attentive to my talk, although I didn't end up speaking about what I had prepared. I spoke instead on the French exploration of the Upper Ohio Valley during the mid-18th century. That is certainly an interesting topic, and admittedly not one that is talked about too much. What I really intended to speak about was the North End of Weirton.
As the youngest person in attendance by decades, I felt a little self-conscious that what I could share about the north end of Weirton was inconsequential, considering that most, if not all, the attendees had personal memories of the neighborhood. When I was old enough to remember the general goings on around me, the North End was already a ghost town. The mill bought up most of that neighborhood for their future expansion, which never happened. So today the streets are there, but there are few buildings.
There are a few historians that can shed light on this neighborhood of the past, and one is John Pandelios. John was born on Oct 6, 1916, on Avenue B in North Weirton. His father had immigrated to the United States in 1907 and worked for E.T. Weir in his Clarksburg plant before he came to Weirton. John had a memory like a steel trap and in 2012, just two years before he passed away at 98, he wrote a book entitled "Memoirs of North Weirton: 1920 through the 1930s."
I had the great pleasure of getting to know John through my work with the Weirton Museum, and I was always impressed by his memory. In his book, he provided a great breakdown of each street in the North End, who lived at the houses, the name of the businesses and places he would play at as a child in the 1920s.
Here are just a few of those memories.
As a child, John remembered that the streets in North Weirton were paved with cinders. Only Forth Street, part of Avenue A and Main Street were paved with brick because they were designated as state Route 2. There are still parts of Fourth Street today which are paved with brick although the street is now closed to traffic. Between Avenues A and B, below Main Street, there was an alley and behind the buildings facing Avenue B, "Sam Aria had a stable that housed work horses used for hauling and equipment for excavating foundations for dwellings and buildings. This stable faced the back of All Saints Greek Orthodox Church and Greek Parochial School. During warm weather, the odor from the stable was horrible."
Also in that area was the William Crago Service Station and the Weirton Pharmacy.
Pandelios explained in detail the buildings and business of most of the blocks in the North End. For instance, the 1300 block of Avenue C was the home to the William Kaufman Furniture Store owned by Sam Geffner. In 1930, the building was purchased by George Kontax and Mike Brown. The first floor became a bar and the George Leeds barber shop. In the basement was the Academy Billiards. Next door was "Jean Costala's Confectionary, later bought by Gus Mundis and was known as the Panhandle Confectionary, later changed to the Green Mill Restaurant." This restaurant was owned by John's father, and he worked there in the 1930s. Next door to that was the Star Clothing store, later becoming the Leader Market. Right before the alley was a business called the Victoria that later became the Washington Restaurant.
The second floor was occupied by Dr. George Rigas. Steve Lazich owned the building later and it became a bar. Steve's son Perry is a member of the Class of 1946 and hosted the reunion last week.
On the other side of the alley was the Mike Psaros barber shop, followed by the Rex Theater and the Vasilios Sofocleos Barber shop. John says that in the mid-1920s that building held a social center and ballroom as it was the center of the Order of the AHEPA. Sometimes he said that professional wrestling was presented there as well. Next door was the Olympic Confectionary, the Hayes Bowling Alleys and finally the John Samaras building with the family living on the second floor. The first floor housed Frankovich and Sons Grocery Store.
One memory John mentioned is about the attempt to unionize Weirton Steel for the CIO. A strike was called and "the company responded by hiring outside strike breakers and the West Virginia State police to maintain order. I remember standing outside my father's restaurant, the Green Mill on Main Street, watching all the action when a state trooper ordered me to get inside the building. Being a "smart alec" teenager, I refused to go. Following my third refusal, he threatened me with his billy club, so I decided to go in the building. The state troopers fired tear-gas bombs to break up the crowds and one broke through the screened window in the front of our building and spread gas inside the restaurant." That, I'm sure, left a lasting impression on John in his young years.
John's book is a treasure trove of memories of his personal life and what life was like in North Weirton in the 1920s and '30s.
Today you can read John's book at the Mary. H. Weir Public Library in the genealogy and local history section. It has been extremely useful for me to use as a resource for our area's history. And with that history behind me, I feel a little more confident speaking to groups of people who grew up with that history firsthand, especially the Class of 1946.
(Zuros is the Hancock County administrator.)