Category: History, Mon Valley Miscellany, Sarcastic? Moi? || By

For years, the McKeesport suburb of Liberty Borough has used Philadelphia's Liberty Bell as its emblem, and many people assume that Liberty (motto: "Like Glassport, but with more Republicans") was named in patriotic commemoration of the values that made this country great.

As John Kerry might say, "Au contraire." In fact, the founding of Liberty Borough provides one of the Mon Valley's many abject lessons in inter-governmental non-cooperation.

In other words, Liberty Borough was named in patriotic commemoration of the values that made Pennsylvania a stagnant backwater, and have left Allegheny County with 130 separate municipalities.

Liberty was originally part of Elizabeth Township. In 1869, property owners seceded from Elizabeth to create Lincoln Township.

Less than 30 years later, another group of property owners broke away to form Port Vue Borough --- so named "due to the beautiful view of the port that the Borough of McKeesport had on the Youghiogheny River between First Street and Seventh Street."

Then in the early 1900s, Port Vue Borough council raised real estate taxes to fund new water lines, but wouldn't extend the lines to about 100 people who lived on farms above the McKeesport Tin Plate Co.

That cinched it; in 1912, those 100 people petitioned Allegheny County to allow them to secede, too, and they did, calling the new borough "Liberty" because they had been "liberated" from Port Vue's tyranny.

(It was a bloodless revolution, and luckily no Port Vue councilmen were guillotined on Romine Avenue.)

. . .

I was thinking about this while reading the recent coverage in the Daily News of objections by residents of Versailles (itself the product of a secession from old Versailles Township) to eliminating their local police force in favor of contracted services from McKeesport or White Oak.

Versailles has a population of 1,700 people, and spends about a third of its annual budget on police service. Most of its police officers are part-timers; it rarely, if ever, has more than one police officer on duty at a time, and already relies on the larger neighboring departments for backup.

All things considered, eliminating Versailles' hardworking but outmatched police department would likely save the borough's taxpayers a lot of money and give them better service.

It's a no-brainer, right?

Wrong. Judging by the comments made by some Versailles residents, you would have thought that borough council had proposed hosting a NAMBLA convention or an al Qaeda training camp.

We couldn't get Port Vue and Liberty to cooperate in 1908, and we can't get Versailles and McKeesport or White Oak to cooperate in 2008.

It's nice to see that in 100 years, we haven't learned a thing.

. . .
Anyway, as a patriotic son of Liberty myself, I was delighted recently to find a copy of the official souvenir program from the borough's 50th anniversary celebration in 1962.

The 100th anniversary of Liberty Borough is four years away, and yet it seems like only yesterday that I was standing on Liberty Way, watching the parade for the 75th anniversary.

I was in seventh grade that year, which makes me officially an Adult, I guess, as if my rapidly receding hairline wasn't enough evidence. (Some people say I've grown old, but I haven't grown up.)

As a public service to all of the other former and present Liberty Borough residents, as well as people who grew up in less fortunate places like Port Vue (ptui!), Glassport and Lincoln, Tube City Online is pleased to present the entire text of that 1962 souvenir book.

It's the newest addition to Tube City Online's ever-expanding History section.