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AMBRIDGE REPRISE
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All is change: all yields its place and goes.
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Euripides
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The future town site of Ambridge is in the bottom right of the map. Economy will be assimilated and the Big Sewickley Creek will form the southern border of the new town.
Beaver Falls (top center) is the major industrial town largely through the efforts of the Harmonites in Economy.
The direction of the Ohio River flow is from the lower right to the left. It forms the heart of the transportation net from Pittsburgh to the cities in the west. The accompanying rail and road systems are well developed.
We begin with roughly 7000 acres of farmland owned by the communal Harmonite Society. It is twenty miles north of Pittsburgh on the banks of the Ohio River.
The infrastructure needed for heavy manufacturing is in place. Steam locomotives pull rail cars along both banks of the Ohio River and tugs push barges through the water. Trolley service is so extensive that it is possible to ride from Stubenville, Ohio to Pittsburgh in about two and one half hours. A road system that would remain almost unchanged for the next hundred years is present
Except in the village of Economy. Access to the rail is limited to a rarely used railroad station. There is a five mile gap in the region’s overland transportation system where the Harmonite farms occupied the land.
Mulberry Lane (in the photograph) is part of this acreage. The lane was also called "Lovers Lane" by the society members. The nickname suggests that the separation of the sexes espoused by the group was more of a choice than a dictum.
A part of Coxy's Army (look it up) stopped here early in 1894 on the way to Washington, DC. The Harmonites supplied them with 20 bushels of home-baked bread, two large boxes of boiled eggs, a hundred pounds of boiled ham, cheeses, and milk. After lunch under the trees, they left for an overnight camp site at nearby Sewickley.
Later, the lane will be renamed 14th Street and businesses will replace the trees.
Photo Credits:
Map, The Library of Congress Archives
Mulberry Lane, Centennial Program