SOS: The Era needs your best or worst, but most unforgettable
Thanksgiving dinner stories to be included in an upcoming feature
story. Please write or e-mail with submissions sent attention to
Tammy, or call the newsroom after 3 p.m. Monday through Friday and
ask for her.
TIE PLANT: More today on what was known as “the tie plant” from
Margie Ackley McCormick.
She writes, “My father, Harold Ackley, worked at the Koppers
Co., also known as the tie plant, for over 30 years.”
“He, along with Lee Stover, Bob Hancock, Frannie Northrup, Chuck
Stine, Wayne McGee, would all, at some time, creosote the ties, and
they were sent to the boring mill to be drilled for the railroad
spikes.
“My brothers, Bob and ‘Pete/Leo’ Ackley, drove check irons in
the ends of the ties with a sledgehammer, but the irons were easier
to drive after the rain.
“My dad took my brother and me to work on payday from Kill Buck,
N.Y., where we lived in the late ’30s and early ’40s before we came
back to Bradford. I remember he would put a glass jar of tea or
soup somewhere near the boiler they creosoted the ties in. He would
stop at the Coney Island Restaurant on the lower part of Main
Street on pay day and buy Pete and me hot dogs and pop while he had
a beer before going home.
“I was with my brothers at times when they drove irons. They
would drag a burlap bag with irons into where they drove them.
There is still one hanging in my dad’s workshop. He passed away in
1977.
“Some others I remember working there were Ruck Price; Clarence
Hardy, uncle; Herb Ackley, uncle; of course, Bob Kilinger; my
uncle, Plynn Bates. My dad also worked on the truck for the
prisoners and was president of the union for Koppers Co. He went to
Horseheads, N.Y., for some time when they moved from Bradford.
“I could go on much longer with pleasant memories, like John
Carries store. Dad would send Pete and me to buy watermelon.
“My grandfather, Fred Ackley, worked at the plant, but I don’t
remember when.”
TODAY’S QUOTE: “Decades of politicians denouncing the ‘liberal
media’ have taken a toll. The public will ignore the watchdog’s
barking if it believes the dog is rabid,” said Kenneth A. Paulson,
editor, USA Today, 2005.
