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    Moraine State Park
    Moraine State Park
    Moraine State Park
    Ebook140 pages48 minutes

    Moraine State Park

    By Polly Shaw

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    About this ebook

    Venture into flora and fauna of Pennsylvania's Moraine State Park and uncover the hidden histories behind its natural treasures.


    About 20,000 years ago, the late Wisconsinan glaciation reached its maximum extent. Glacial deposits identify the moraine, or farthest area covered by the glacier. Muddy Creek was a north-flowing stream that was blocked by the south-advancing glacier, forming a huge lake that lasted until the glacier dam began to retreat. The lake rapidly drained, eventually exposing the vast Muddy Creek basin. Dr. Frank Preston envisioned recreating the ancient glacial lake and worked with the Western Pennsylvania Conservancy to begin the project that became 16,725-acre Moraine State Park. Its centerpiece, man-made Lake Arthur and the surrounds, provide outstanding outdoor recreation and relaxation opportunities.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherArcadia Publishing
    Release dateMar 20, 2017
    ISBN9781439659854
    Moraine State Park
    Author

    Polly Shaw

    A lifelong resident of Butler County, Pennsylvania, Polly Shaw is a retired teacher, history enthusiast, and longtime state park volunteer. She has selected images from park archives, resources of two park support groups, local amateur photographers, and her personal collection to tell the history of the immediate area, including the Western Allegheny Railroad and the impressive reclamation of the land that had been ravaged by mining and oil. Pictures illustrate the monumental work that transformed the land, from constructing the dam and moving a US highway to repurposing the surrounding area to create today's Moraine State Park.

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      Book preview

      Moraine State Park - Polly Shaw

      enjoy.

      INTRODUCTION

      May 14, 1896, marked the birth of a baby boy in Leicester, England. The East Midlands village, located on part of an old glacial lake bed, is drained by the River Soar. Surely this baby was welcomed with love, as a first-born should be. But this particular boy’s path in life was destined to be different from many of his generation and to leave a lasting impact on faraway Western Pennsylvania.

      Frank W. Preston started school at age five. He knew people with extensive bird egg collections and began his own. He remembered lessons in classification of insects and rudiments of geology at age 10. After his early schooling, at age 12 he attended Wyggeston Boys’ School. By age 20, he had earned three degrees from Oxford University and the University of London and begun work as a civil engineer. Drafted during World War I, he had a medical exemption, although he had a great desire to be useful. His book of personal memoirs, Boys of the Old Brigade, is in memory of many of his school friends from Wiggy who died in the war.

      On a whim, Preston took a job in 1917 at the Stoughton Street Glass Works and quickly changed his focus to glass, working primarily in the field of lens polishing, glass quality, and glass properties. His boss sent him to Rochester, New York, to work with George Eastman of Eastman Kodak and his lens-polishing machine. By 1922, Preston was working with Frank Troutman at Standard Plate and Glass in Butler, Pennsylvania. While there, he developed new glass polishing techniques and worked on plate-glass handling equipment.

      While in Butler, Preston later wrote that he didn’t find friends who shared his interest in birds and geology. Still, on one fateful, hot summer evening as early as 1922, a coworker suggested that they take a ride to Slippery Rock for some ice cream and a breath of fresh air. Preston noticed the significant change in topography as we reached the hill above the valley of Muddy Creek.

      Today, that 0.7-mile stretch of Pennsylvania Route 8 is commonly called Muddy Creek Flats. He ascribed the broad, flat area to the effect of glaciation. Preston was still in the Butler area in 1924 when he went with friends to Branchton, near Kiesters on the Slippery Rock Creek, to do a little hunting. We know that he recognized the presence of an ancient glacier and did some tramping about in the area. He would have noticed oil drilling, as well as local coal and limestone mining, and the railroad running through that flat Muddy Creek basin. In 1925, he embarked on a world tour and earned his doctorate in engineering from the University of London by taking tests but without attending classes.

      Preston decided to return to Butler and formed his own glass research and consulting firm in 1926. The first location was on the second floor of an old building in Butler, but in 1936–1937, he built Preston Laboratories in nearby Meridian. Preston Laboratories continued to grow; he added more staff and traveled near and far as a consultant in the glass industry, making important contributions to his field. In 1942, he married Jane Hupman, an executive secretary he met at Owens-Illinois in Toledo, Ohio, while consulting there. He was immersed in his business, eager to intertwine his interests in science and nature. Always a keen student, he developed important contacts at the Carnegie Museum and the University of Pittsburgh, which he consulted frequently as he studied the glacial impact on the area that he first noticed back in 1922. He asked complicated questions as he sought to understand and identify the glacial moraine.

      World War II curtailed Preston’s fondness for exploring the geology and glacial impact of the area, but he continued when gas rationing was lifted after the war. By this time, he had a strong leadership team in place at Preston Laboratories, so he was able to step back some from day-today operations, allowing him much more time to devote to his study of the land and to envision a grand plan to use modern means to reclaim the changed land.

      In the late 1940s, Dr. Preston was in a unique position, as the man who had the opportunity and the means to achieve his big goal: reflooding the ancient glacial lake and creating a protected area for all to enjoy, which he referred to as Moraineland. Read on to learn about the environmental engineering achievements needed to create the recreational opportunities of today’s Moraine State

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