Kittanning High School - Kit Han Ne Yearbook (Kittanning, PA)

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Whey only can teach who themselves have learned. 7ANON

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scription rates very kindly submitted by the editor, and three advertisements,-one for a sale of land, another a political announcement, and the third a notice of unclaimed letters. From such humble beginnings, our present advanced state is even more remarkable. In line with other civic improvements, was the purchase of our first fire engine in 1824. Can't you picture it, new and red and shiny,-its bells clanging and making enough noise to frighten away the naughty fire spirits without any water at all? Also, a new engine house was built for it, costing our city the enormous sum of sixty dollars. Nowadays we could not buy a collapsible garage for that amount. Several years later, our growing town had the honor of being selected as the place of meeting for a great 'tlmprovement Convention in which repre- sentatives from all the surrounding counties met to discuss needed improvements, and ways and means for bringing them about. However, there was one phase of improvement which the people quite neglected in their enthusiasm for internal progress. They built up a very fine town but they forgot for the time being that, in order to display it to the world, there must be some means of approaching it. Consequently, roads and traveling facilities remained in a very poor state until long after the town had grown to considerable importance. The river offered the best means of transpor- tation for a long time. If a farmer decided to give up his rural life and move to the city, he simply built a huge raft, and floated his establishment including cattle, chickens, and horses down the river to Kittanning with no interruption of household duties on the way. The river front was lined with wharfs, and frequent steamboats and rafts came to carry on commerce with the merchants of the town. If anyone found it necessary to travel overland, he went on horseback over the old Indian trails, or struggled along the exceptionally poor roads. In the year 1825, the first step towards more convenient and more comfortable means of travel was taken. Then, my dear students from Worthington, if you had been attending Kittanning High School, you would have come to school in a stage-coach, for in that year the first stage- coach lines between Kittanning and Worthington were established. During the course of its remarkable history, Kittanning has not only been the scene of events of national importance, but it has also had experiences which only the elite in towns are privileged to share, including floods, fires, and earthquakes. The worst flood was back in the winter of '6S', when the old Allegheny let loose with all its fury. People along the river bank were forced to betake themselves to their second floors and live there as best they could until the water subsided,-leaving their living rooms and kitchens habitable once more. Boats were rowed with ease through the five and one-fourth feet of water on Arch Street, and proved a very convenient means of transportation while the flood lasted. The great earthquake took place on May 9, 1828 when the sleep of the inhabitants was rudely interrupted for two minutes by a more or less violent shaking. Upon further investigation this was found to be a stray cor- ner of an earthquake in the Pittsburgh vicinity. i Thus, the infant town got safely through its teething period, and began to walk. It has kept on walking ever since, and as the years passed and it learned to walk better, it walked faster and faster until .it reached its present dizzy rate of speed. To be sure, it still has its epidemics of influenza and scarlet fever, just to seem like old times, and the Ladies' Sewing Circle still meets and makes quilts and talks in the good old-fashioned way, but in all other respects we are right up to the minute. We have had a taste of the depression with just enough of the trim- mings to make it seem real, but the banks are still open and the treasury deficit could be greater, and so the old place must have acquired some sense, after all, in its century and a half of life. -NELLIE REESE KITTANNING Page 9

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