LOOKING BACK 1958: Let it snow! Oh, no!
The call came in that Thomas J. Johnson needed an ambulance. He was seriously ill and needed to get to the hospital. Normally, it wouldn’t be a problem, but in early 1958, getting anywhere in Garrett County was, to say the least, difficult. The ambulance attempted to reach him, but it couldn’t get through to Johnson’s Herrington Manor home. Help came in the form of bulldozers and snow plows that struggled to carve a path through drifting snow as high as 15 feet. It took six hours for the plows to reach the 67-year-old Johnson and rush him to Garrett Memorial. During another incident that winter, Trooper First Class Robert Henline walked three miles through deep snow that vehicles couldn’t get through to deliver medicine to a desperate family near Gorman. Other incidents occurred, some serious and some just major Read more…
Embarrassed wife has Oakland’s first doctor executed
It’s been said that hell hath no fury like a woman scorned. Such fury cost Oakland its first doctor. When Dr. John Conn stepped off the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad train in 1851, he was a pioneer. Oakland hadn’t yet been incorporated as a town and the region was still frontier for Maryland. The town only had a few hundred citizens and they needed a doctor. The next-closest doctor was Dr. John H. Patterson in Grantsville. To get there and back to Oakland would have taken a full day. Conn set up his office at Second and Oak streets where it quickly flourished. “In the days before the convenience of a well-stocked pharmacy, it was said that the ‘young doctor’ either had on hand the correct medication, or could prescribe a suitable home remedy for any attack of ague or Read more…
The morning Oakland burned (part 2)
Note: This is the second of two articles about the Great Oakland Fire of 1898. As a fire rampaged through Oakland, Md., during the morning of July 12, 1898, the townspeople had formed a bucket brigade to fight the fire. The fire department had a chemical engine that was also being used to try to put out the fire. It was overwhelming, and Oakland Mayor R. S. Jamison telegraphed Mayor George A. Kean of Cumberland for help. Kean promised to send a fire company, but that help would be hours away. Jamison’s message may have been one of the last to get out of Oakland before the fire burned down three telegraph poles, taking the wire with it. A correspondent with the Warren (Pa.) Democrat had been transmitting a story to the newspaper when he had lost communications. The message read, Read more…
The morning Oakland burned (part 1)
Note: This is the first of two articles about the Great Oakland Fire of 1898. Robert Shirer woke up from a deep sleep the morning of July 12, 1898, when the sound of a whistle and church bell wouldn’t stop. When he opened his eyes, wondering what the reason for the noise was, he saw that his bed was on fire and some of his room. He jumped from his bed and ran out of the burning building with only his nightclothes on. It was a narrow escape that left him with slight burns. Outside, it appeared as if all of Oakland was on fire. I.L. Haught, a clerk at the Oakland Pharmacy, had been the first person to see the fire that morning. Like Shirer, he had been asleep, but he came awake much earlier than usual because of Read more…
"Looking Back" column appearing in a new newspaper
Another newspaper – The Oakland Republican in Oakland, Maryland – picked up my “Looking Back” column on a monthly basis last week. I’m pretty happy about that because I love researching the stories and writing about them. For example, I found a story about a man who was called the “Champion Miner of the World” in the 1920’s because of how fast he was at mining coal. I wrote about his story for The Republican, but in researching it, I found out that this man’s son, was a frontline reporter in WWII who won a Pulitzer Prize. He also got his reporting start at another newspaper that carries my column so I had two columns from one idea. Right now, four newspapers – The Catoctin Banner, The Gettysburg Times, The Cumberland Times-News, and The Oakland Republican – carry my column, Read more…
Embarrassed wife has doctor killed in 1851
It’s been said that hell hath no fury like a woman scorned. Such fury cost Oakland, Md., its first doctor. When Dr. John Conn stepped off the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad train in 1851, he was a pioneer. Oakland hadn’t yet been incorporated as a town and the region was still frontier for Maryland. The town only had a few hundred citizens and they needed a doctor. The next-closest doctor was Dr. John H. Patterson in Grantsville, Md. To get there and back to Oakland would have taken a full day. Conn set up his office at Second and Oak streets where it quickly flourished. “In the days before the convenience of a well-stocked pharmacy, it was said that the ‘young doctor’ either had on hand the correct medication, or could prescribe a suitable home remedy Read more…
For All the Baseball Fans Out There…
“Babe” Ruth was a baseball legend. You can find out why in When the Babe Came to Town. My new ebook shows how the Babe connected with the fans through his many exhibition and barnstorming games.When the Babe Came to Town is a collection of some of these stories highlighting games that Babe Ruth played in Emmitsburg, Maryland; York, Pennsylvania; Oakland, California and Cumberland, Maryland. It was big news when Babe Ruth came to town. Many residents of these smaller towns unused to seeing Major League baseball games in the days before television. They had only read about Babe Ruth’s talent in the newspapers or heard about it on the radio. The Babe came to town and showed them what they were missing as he hit home runs out of the park. There are a lot of these stories out Read more…
Coming in June!
I thought I would let everyone have a peek at the cover art for my next book, which should be out just in time for the Heritage Days Festival in Cumberland in June. I think Stephanie E. J. Long did a great job with it. I definitely looks like it is part of the series. This volume is 150 pages and 47 stories from Western Maryland along with 33 black-and-white photos. It contains stories of lost treasure, train wrecks and successful residents. You’ll also find out where Albert Einstein liked to get away in the summer and the story of Allegany County’s lost automobile manufacturing industry. Looking Back II: More True Stories of Mountain Maryland will retail for $14.95.
Embarrassed wife has Oakland’s first doctor executed
It’s been said that hell hath no fury like a woman scorned. Such fury cost Oakland its first doctor. When Dr. John Conn stepped off the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad train in 1851, he was a pioneer. Oakland hadn’t yet been incorporated as a town and the region was still frontier for Maryland. The town only had a few hundred citizens and they needed a doctor. The next-closest doctor was Dr. John H. Patterson in Grantsville. To get there and back to Oakland would have taken a full day. Conn set up his office at Second and Oak streets where it quickly flourished. “In the days before the convenience of a well-stocked pharmacy, it was said that the ‘young doctor’ either had on hand the correct medication, or could prescribe a suitable home remedy for any attack of ague or Read more…
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