Eric J Moskala
Published: 2022-06-27
Total Pages: 0
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In 1800 Colonel Edward Cook laid out the town of Freeport, Pennsylvania, on the banks of the Monongahela River in the northwestern corner of what was to become Fayette County. The town changed its name to Cookstown to honor its founder in 1825 and then to Fayette City in 1854. For the better part of the first half of the 1800s, Fayette City was known for building boats, manufacturing glass, and farming. In the latter half of the century, coal mining became the predominant occupation. Coal production in and around Fayette City exploded during the last decade of the 1800s. The abundance of jobs in the mines generated an influx of immigrants, primarily from central and eastern Europe, causing Fayette City's population to double from just under one thousand in 1890 to just over two thousand by 1910. Coal production reached a peak around 1915 and then decreased well into the 1920s as many of the large mines became mined out. The closure of the mines and the onset of the Great Depression in the 1930s had a devasting effect on Fayette City as well as on numerous other small towns in the Monongahela River Valley. The 1940s, however, would show a resurgence in the community and prove to be, with the benefit of hindsight, the last gasp of a small industrial town. From World War II to the town's extraordinary Sesquicentennial celebration in 1950, the 1940s offered devasting lows and exhilarating highs. This book is based largely on interviews with more than thirty men and women who lived in Fayette City during the 1940s. Their recollections, both good and bad, of this exceptional period offer insight into what made Fayette City a place that evoked such strong, fond, and enduring memories in the hearts of those fortunate enough to have experienced the town then. It truly was an era the likes of which we may never be seen again.
