As you drive west bound on I- 376 thru the Fort Pitt Tunnels and come out bound from Downtown Pittsburgh as you come out of the tunnels on your right hand side you pass by the site of a famous Pittsburgh gun battle which took place in 1959 in what became known as the battle of Chicken Hill.
between the Pittsburgh Police Dept and 2 notorious bank robbers. I know about this chapter in Pittsburgh History because of the story my grandfather told me who lived near by in Westwood.
First a little back round Chicken Hill as it is known was called this because of early settlers who kept and raised chickens on the hill a small section of Pittsburgh's West End. Which was significantly cut back during excavation in early 1950's for I-376 also known as the Parkway west. where 2 railroad tunnels where day lighted and replaced with bridges over the parkway the lower one that serves the Old Pittsburgh and West Virginia Railroad which started as Wabash Railroad and the higher bridge Operated by Wheeling & Lake Erie Railroad which started as the Norfolk & Western Railroad. My dad as a young man actually helped build the intersection known as the Banksville Circle which connects ramps under the bridges.
So on with the story July 23, 1959 a hot sunny summer day 2 men Joesph Gaito and Edward Kern walk into the no longer in existence People's First National Bank and Trust company in Hays Pa. a small ward of the city of Pittsburgh located between Baldwin Boro and Homestead Pa.
The thieves make a clean get away they think taking off thru Baldwin Boro into the south hills of Pittsburgh and over into the Mt Lebanon area where they are spotted by police and take off towards the west end Crashing there get away car and then taking off on foot up Chicken Hill trying to escape there pursuers . which begins a several hour long gun battle in the hot dusty sunny day between Pittsburgh ,Allegheny County and Pa. State police which saw high drama as both crooks and police climbed around the bridges . Both criminals eventually surrender after both are wounded by sharp shooters but not before 2 police officers are wounded as well. Both men get 20 plus year sentences for bank robbery which Mr Gaito serves and is released never to be heard from again or so you would think . But in the late 80's an elderly Mr. Gaitos is once again a suspect in an armed robbery of a grocery store , he is eventually cleared when a local priest claims he was having dinner with Mr. Gaitos who quietly passes away a few years later in Florida.
There are no markers or any thing else to mark the area of the event just some fading memories , an old Pitt News reel from KDKA TV and old newspaper articles of the event which happened several months before I was born.
There have been many high profile criminal dramas as well as horrific tragedies around South Western Pa. some even made into movies like Mrs. Soffel and the Biddle Brothers and there escape from the Allegheny County Jail with Mrs. Sofffel the wardens wife and the Murder of Union Coal boss Jake Yublonski and his family . But so many lost to history. I hope to do more research and present some of the more significant cases as they have many important safety and moral lessons that are useful to this day.
Very interesting story that I actually saw and heard unfold before my eyes on that day.
ReplyDeleteI was living with my family in Aliquippa and a junior in college that summer when my dad took a notion to drive my mother, me and my “little” sister across Pennsylvania to visit his older brother in East Stroudsburg and we started out through Moon Township to reach the “Parkway” and through Pittsburgh to get on the PA Turnpike.
We were just coming down the long hill on the “Parkway” (now Rte 376) preparatory to going through the Ft Pitt Tunnel right where Banksville Rd enters when the whole line suddenly stopped and we sat sweltering in the heat until my father and I got out and sat on the hood to see what was going on.
Just as we got on the hood, the shooting started up on “Chicken Hill” which we could see right in front of us. I don’t remember how many shots were exchanged between the police and the bank robbers but it was clearly a running battle and the sounds moved over the hill, from left to right as I recall but I may be wrong on that.
I don’t remember how long we sat there but it was a very long time, in fact we broke out and ate some sandwiches we had packed ---because my father (PBUH) was too frugal (read: cheap) to stop at Howard Johnson’s on the Turnpike-- when the line started moving, we went through the tunnel onto the Ft Pitt Bridge (which my ironworker father –Local #3 Pittsburgh--had helped build several years before and was always so proud to drive across) and made it to the Turnpike and East Stroudsburg and when my uncle asked why we were late—there were no cell phones then—we only said there was a traffic jam on the Parkway and we never did find out what happened until we got back home and read the story in the paper.
There were a lot of other people in the traffic jam so I know there are many others out there who share my memory.
Forrest Smith, Pleasanton California