Tag: Pennsylvania
Scranton Hearing Reveals Fight Over Child Labor in the Mines
In the hard coal fields of Pennsylvania, where whole towns lived by the whistle of the mines, the question of a miner’s wage was never…
Pittsburgh Police Probe Mystery of Headless Body
The discovery of a headless body in a bath house along Pittsburgh’s Monongahela River left detectives with a grim puzzle and almost nothing to follow. …
Pittsburgh Nurse Slain Near Abandoned Mansion
When Elsie Barthel left her Pittsburgh home for a short walk on a Saturday evening, there was no sign that anything was wrong. The 27-year-old…
Body Stolen from Erie Mausoleum
In February 1911, a disturbing report out of Erie, Pennsylvania, told of a crime that seemed almost too grotesque to believe: a wealthy family mausoleum…
Smoke Poured From Pittsburgh’s Western Penitentiary Windows
Shortly before one o’clock in the afternoon, emergency calls rang out from Western Penitentiary in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The first reports were alarming enough: prisoners had…
Headless Bodies Found in Pennsylvania’s Murder Marsh
They called it “murder marsh,” and by October of 1925, the name seemed horribly earned. In the swampy ground between Newcastle Junction and West Pittsburgh,…
Wilkes-Barre Mine Cave-In Destroyed Homes in Five Points
In the bitter cold of a January morning in 1883, the people of Wilkes-Barre’s Five Points neighborhood were jolted awake by a sound like an…
Rural Valley Man Dreams of Missing Neighbor’s Body
In February 1925, a strange report out of Kittanning, Pennsylvania, told of a missing man, a repeated dream, and the discovery of a body exactly…
9 Men Hurt in Pittston Mining Incident
A mine cage was supposed to carry workers safely down into the darkness and back again, but when something went wrong, it could become a…
Headless Body Discovered on the Pittsburgh Tracks
The discovery was as grim as it was puzzling. Early one October morning in 1915, the mutilated body of Miss Sophie McCallin was found near…
