FOSTER BROOK: Our recent ‘RTS columns about the 40th anniversary
of the J.C. Penney auto center and of Firestone prompted another
reader to call in about the E.W. Hardware and Ruth Bros., Inc.
store, also situated at one time in Foster Brook on that very
popular business site.

We looked it up in our archives and found that these “two
business neighbors” merged just about this time 50 years ago.

The original E.W. Hardware – named for its owner, Ernie Williams
– started out on Derrick Road, and Ruth Bros. – with Charles Ruth
as president – was at the northwest corner of the Foster Brook
crossroads where the most-recent incarnation of Firestone was
located.

The merged business became a “one stop, semi-self-service
merchandise mart … for the hobbyist, gardener, householder,
sportsman and child in search of the latest toy.”

Our reader mentioned a grocery store had been located across the
street where Worth Smith is now. The South Penn gas station was
where the Northwest branch bank is now situated, he said.

40 YEARS: Speaking of the past, we’d like to acknowledge the
40-year-anniversary of the Bradford Historical Society and its
invaluable work of preserving our city’s history. The worthy
ancestor of this association, the Bradford Landmark Society, began
May 13, 1969, when, according to an Era news article, a
“representative group of interested historians” met at the Carnegie
Library and took preliminary steps to organize a group “whose
purposes will include the preservation and reconstruction of
historic landmarks in the Bradford area, and the safekeeping of
documents, maps, pictures and other graphic materials pertaining to
the domestic and business life of this community.”

Accompanying the article was a photograph of Mrs. F. Wayne
Fesenmyer, general chairman of Heritage Days in Bradford; J.P.
Jones, president of the Penn Grade Crude Oil Association, and Mrs.
Robert Perry, temporary chairman of the group. Jones, by the way,
was the keynote speaker at the inaugural meeting, and his topic was
Bradford’s oil history.

The article notes: “Describing the Bradford oil field as the
second largest in area in the U.S. (about 10 by 20 miles), Jones
said the field reached its peak in 1881 when 23 million barrels
were produced from 11,200 wells. The peak of secondary production
produced by water flooding was reaching in 1937 when 16 million
barrels were pumped.”