In the news this week 91 years ago:
• The Sewickley Advisory Council of the Union Aid Society reported that 227 men had been given part-time work from April 9 to Sept. 17. At press time, 408 men had registered for employment. “The demand for work and the demand for relief is constantly increasing,” the Herald wrote.
• The Allegheny County Emergency Association was set to run out of funds from its relief appropriation for “some 17,500 unemployed families living in Allegheny County, outside Pittsburgh” within a week’s time. Officials were seeking a new funding source to carry over to Oct. 1, when a new allotment of state funds would become available. In the meantime, relief to affected families had been cut to $3 per week. “Welfare Fund relief agency workers are taking an intensely sympathetic and informed interest in the attempt of families to maintain existence on a basis of $3 a week,” the Herald wrote. “Advice on purchase of food is being given so that every penny will bring best possible return in food value.”
• Sewickley Borough was preparing for a celebration to mark the opening of newly-completed road projects to traffic. The work included the “Broad Street extension, the bridge approach and part of the Ohio River Boulevard.” There was to be a short ceremony with a parade, band music and some “colorful features.” Invitations had been extended to officials from surrounding boroughs “from Bellevue to Beaver Falls, all of whose citizens are in position to appreciate the added traffic convenience the improvement will afford.”
Organizers were cognizant of how their party might come off in the midst of an economic depression.
“It is desired to limit the money-expenditure very closely, since it is not a year to waste funds that are likely to be needed for more vital causes,” the Herald wrote. Organizers were encouraging local merchants to avoid elaborate decorations in favor of “regular sidewalk flags, which after all give the streets a better appearance than a miscellaneous assortment of colored muslin or paper arranged in varying taste and causing wasteful attempts by each store to outshine its neighbors.”
The original Sewickley Bridge, opened in 1911, was open to traffic until 1980, when it was replaced with a new span.
