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John Fray, September 30, 2024:

A Shout-Out To WFEM, Ellwood's First Radio Station.

In 1968, the Ellwood City community was pleasantly surprised to behold a newly-constructed radio tower overlooking the segment Conoquennessing Creek valley in which the borough is situate. The stunningly tall tower rose to a height of 400 feet, and was topped with a 16-foot broadcast antenna. The broadcasting studio was located along Fifth Street near the railroad overpass. The call letters of the station were WFEM which signified an instrument-only music broadcasting format, one which could be characterized as gentle and nurturing, a la the female spirit. Local news coverage and high school sports broadcasting were part of the mix. Fine on-air personalities added flair to the daily informational broadcasts. In 1973, when I was in my senior year of high school, the format changed to country music, and the station's moniker became "C 92" in reference to country music at 92.1 on the FM dial. I can still recall listening to certain country music recordings which I have not been able to track down to this day. The Saturday evening country music retrospective slot was pure elegance. That was before the "Outlaw" movement of country music arose, but its subversive origins were apparent in some of the new releases which the station offered and which remain dear to my heart.





Aahh, the Halloween season is upon us. Time for spooky tales, bobbing for apples, apple cider. In Ellwood City, Trick-or-Treat night was standardized around the year 1950. Before that time, neighborhood youths began knocking on doors looking for treats in mid-October. The Ellwood City Halloween parade occurred on a school night from the 1950s through the 1980s. About 1990, the parade was renamed "The Cabbage Patch Parade" and moved to mid-afternoon on the Saturday before Halloween.

Of course, Halloween has its origins in a religion observance, that being All Hallows Eve, which is the evening before the Feast of All Saints Day.






REROUTING THE RAILROAD

When Ellwood City was incorporated in 1892, the plan was for the railroad to be rerouted so that it would pass through the borough. The line which existed at the time had the Pittsburgh-originating trains pass through Franklin Township, cross the Slippery Rock Creek over a bridge, and enter Wayne Township. From there the trains would proceed a few miles west to the Borough of Hazel Dell, which comprised the area now known as the Fourth Ward of Ellwood City. From there, the trains proceeded west and eventually followed a path along what is now the Ellwood-Wampum Road and joined the tracks which are located a mile east of Rock Point, where the Conoquennessing Creek flows into the Beaver River. The rerouted train line, established in the late 1890s, takes the trains from the Frisco area in Franklin Township across the Conoquennessing Creek by means of bridge which leads to a tunnel in the Second Ward of Ellwood City. Thanks to that revised route, trains are able to pass through Ellwood City and make a second crossing over the Conoquennessing Creek at the west side of the borough. After that second crossing, the trains are in Wayne Township and on the rails one mile east of Rock Point.