Historian Tom Powers tapped to author Blawnox centennial book

When the village of Hoboken — current-day Blawnox — was first laid out in the late 1860s, it was created to support the contractors, and later the employees, of the now-gone Allegheny County Workhouse in neighboring O’Hara.

“When Hoboken was first laid out, it was just another land deal,” historian Tom Powers said.

“There wasn’t much enthusiasm. It grew into such a nice suburban community with so many more riverfront amenities that you think it would have.”

As the borough approaches its centennial milestone in April 2025, Powers has been enlisted to compile a book about its highlights.

“I hope the Blawnox book gives people a better appreciation and a more solid background as to how the community was conceived and how it developed,” he said.

Powers teased, “We’ll also dispel a few misconceptions.”

In addition to private research through the Heinz History Center, Powers will be trekking around town, taking pictures and talking with residents and business owners to collect stories, Manager Kathy Ulanowicz said.

“We have a committee working on the celebration, and we thought Mr. Powers is certainly knowledgeable on local history and felt he would be the best person to help gather and coordinate the information to mark this occasion,” Ulanowicz said.

Powers hopes to fill in the gaps of information commonly shared and said there will be a few unexpected details.

As for how Hoboken got its name, Powers said, “For years, people in Hoboken, New Jersey, have claimed the name mimicked theirs and came from Native Americans who were in this area, but it looks more and more that it’s a Dutch name.”

There also was a theory that the name was a play on the term used for the vagrants who populated the Workhouse – hobos.

The river town sandwiched between O’Hara and Harmar was renamed as a nod to the community’s most significant industry and largest employer, the Blaw-Knox Co., and was incorporated as Blawnox in 1925.

“We’ll talk about the Lehman family (founders of the Blaw-Knox Co.) and highlight where the borough is today,” he said.

The company officially closed Dec. 31, 1991.

“When you have a borough that was so heavily invested in one company, and then it leaves, you leave a really big gap.

“I hope that people will enjoy learning about the community and use it as an item to remember the centennial.”

Despite his familiarity with local history, Powers said he’s been surprised by a few findings during research for the book.

“I want to take my time to dig this stuff up,” he said. “I’m trying to nail down the official beginning of the borough because new research indicates something other than what we thought.”

The 48-page memento will be released prior to the centennial.

Powers previously published the O’Hara history book, “Portrait of an American Community” that tells how the township evolved from frontier land to a modern community.

Most recently, he co-authored “The Allegheny Arsenal Handbook,” which chronicles 112 years of the Union Army manufacturing center in Lawrenceville, which closed in 1926.