Where was the casket that went with the handle?
In 1896, Frostburg residents seemed to be worried that a grave robber was on the loose in Frostburg. The Frostburg Mining Journal ran an article on April 30 under the headline: “A Suspicious Find” that explained that a silver-plated casket handle had been found on Maple Street in front of former Justice L. J. Parker’s home. “It is slightly rusted but otherwise well preserved, indicating that it had not been long underground. Evidences that it had very lately been wrenched from a casket are seen in the fresh breaks,” the newspaper reported. Members of the Parker family had heard a wagon and team of horses pass by the house around 2 a.m., which was unusual, “and now believed to have some connection with a grave robbing somewhere,” according to the Frostburg Mining Journal. The handle had been shown to all Read more…
Looking Back: Sledding on City Streets
By 1923, cars were no longer a novelty on Cumberland’s roads. They had surpassed horse-drawn wagons and carriages as the main form of transportations. With more cars on the streets, the chances of accidents rose. Cars could zip along at speeds of 40 miles an hour or more. However, just like today if a driver tried to stop too quickly on snow-covered streets, the car could slide out of control. That was causing problems because children sledding shared a similar problem. Once their sled was in motion, it was hard to stop. Unfortunately many of them didn’t stop until they hit a moving car. This led parents to action. At a city council meeting in February 1923, “The suggestion that a special street for sled riding by children be roped off and protected by city authorities in order to prevent Read more…
Mystery of Valley Street bridge explosion revealed
The three teenagers tossed a baseball back and forth as they walked home from Allegany High School where they had been participating in an athletic program sponsored by the Cumberland Police Department. It was a Saturday morning in February 1945. Robert Milburn,14; Eugene Iames, 14; and Eugene’s brother, Allen, 12, started to spread out as they walked across the Valley Street bridge. Robert and Eugene were near the center while Allen rushed ahead of them to the end of the bridge. Two blasts sounded within seconds of each other. “The second blast was louder than the first and when I looked out the window, the whole middle section of the bridge seemed to bulge eight or ten feet into the air,” William Keegan, owner of the Shober Restaurant, told the Cumberland Sunday Times. The force of the explosion shattered many Read more…
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