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The Progress
Saturday 11 1993

Submitted to P.R.F. by Kathy Wagner

VIEW FROM GRASSFLAT

It was a pretty grassy flats, a place to rest along the Indian path and later the foot path of European settlers of Pennsylvania traversing through rugged wilderness along the Moshannon Creek or Moravian Run. Or it was a grassy island in the stream.
Over time it evolved from Grass Flats or Platts to Grassflat, a Cooper Township village.
Today it is a mostly residential area centered on churches and volunteer organizations, with the population dwindled from a past when Grassflat grew up in a boom fired by the black coal under the grassy land.
How the village became Grassflat is a story with several variations, but all involving a flat grassy area, not an area of trampled or flattened grass.
According to some accounts, miners named Grassflat for a flat grassy island in a fork of the creek.
A 1978 map shows Grass Platt at the mouth of little Moravian Run.
Grassflat sits above “Black Waters,” that is Moshannon Creek, as named by Indians, according to a “History of Hometowns of Cooper Township High School Students,” compiled by students under the guidance of their teacher, the late Lewis Lucas in 1949-50.
The stream is now called the Red Moshannon, a result of the pollution from the mining that brought the area its fortunes.
Indians traveled a trail along the creek near Peale, a former mining town not far from Grassflat, and on through Kylertown to Clearfield, The trail was also followed by early travelers of European descent and both groups or either group may have noted the grassy flats.
Grassflat as the village name was made final by the first Post Master, Edgar Johnson, according to his niece, Vera Johnson, a Grassflat resident, but it could have been a Pleasant Hill.
Since Mr. Johnson had the post office at his father’s store in the Pleasant Hill area of present-day Grassflat, he first submitted the name Pleasant Hill, which was rejected as already was taken.
He then submitted West Clymer, another area of Grassflat, which was also rejected a third name submission was a charm for Grassflat.
“My father always told us the little island towards Peale was called Grassflat Island, so Uncle Edgar used that name,” she said.
Ms. Johnson said she believes that first post office was established in 1893.
Eventually the people of Grassflat grew weary of walking up the hill “in a direction from Grassflat town never traveled by Grassflat people” to get the mail at the Johnson store and petitioned to have the post office moved to the middle of town.
The petition notes every man in town but two signed it, one being the post master.
An accompanying map depicted the layout of the town in relation to the post office and the areas shown included one inhabited by “Republicans and aliens.”
The post office controversy was resolved with the moving of the post office and politics played a continuing role as the party of the U.S. President was the party the post master was chosen from.
Ms. Johnson said her Republican uncle’s downtown post office included an ice cream parlor: “It was one big room with the boxes on one side and the ice cream parlor on the other side.”
In those days, Grassflat had “oodles of stores,” Ms. Johnson said, butcher shops, meat markets, clothing and other establishments.
“Now you have to go to Kylertown to buy a loaf of bread,” she said.
Grassflat’s first movie theatre was the Nickelodeon, which charged a nickel, and later it had the bigger Blue Star.
The Grassflat hotel had 43 rooms. The building is now used by the Grassflat Loyal Order of the Moose.
Grassflat is made up of four sections, Upper Grassflat; Pleasant Hill, which still has some Republican but no known aliens; West Clymer, the Swedish settlement; and Dobrytown, Slovak name meaning “good town.”
Lutheran Slovaks of Dobrytown bought an old abandoned church in Peale, dismantled it and rebuilt in on the hill over Dobrytown. Sts. Peter and Paul Catholic Church served those of the Catholic faith.
Other churches included the present Pleasant Hill United Methodist, originally the Hickory Bottom Class.
There was also a Swedish Lutheran Church and Emanuel Lutheran, an outgrowth from the Nebo Lutheran Church of Peale.
Pleasant Hill and Sts. Peter and Paul are two remaining churches of Grassflat.
The discovery of a large vein of coal in 1884 prompted the growth of Grassflat, where only several large farms were located before.
Closer to the Moshannon Creek was Peale, a thriving mining town of 5,000 now a ghost town, and many miners moved from Peale to Grassflat to work its mines.
The mining company moved at least five company houses from Peale to Grassflat, houses referred to as the “Devils’ Five,” and still standing and occupied at Dobrytown.
The miners’ lives were hard and boys as well as men went into the mines before morning light and worked there until after dark.
New immigrants boarded with farmers, some sleeping on the wooden floors, until they could earn enough to bring their families to America, Ms. Johnson said.
Ms. Johnson, whose father was an undertaker, recalls him being called out on a Christmas Eve for a mining fatality and on another occasion for a fatal accident involving a father and son.
Henry Force, 81, has lived in Grassflat for 80 years, since his family “moved up here from Peale,”
“We moved here in 1912. There were a lot of houses then and more people,” he said, noting numerous houses torn down and less new ones built.
Grassflat than also had mud or dirt roads with paved roads not arriving until the 1930s and the WPA, he said, and snow clearing done by long-handled shovels:” You’d shovel it off and it would blow right back,” Mr. Force noted.
Of course, at one time only company Doctor Spackman and a Mr. Potter had cars, which they rented out and drove for weddings, Ms. Johnson’s said.
Citizens Water Co. was organized by citizens, who sold stock at $25 a share, Mr. Force said.
The original water lines from a reservoir at Grassflat were wooden and “didn’t last long,” Mr. Force said. The wooden pipes were tarred and wrapped with steel bands.
Mr. Force said he recalls water bills of $1.50 a month for unmetered supply.
He said in 1918 water from Winburne, supplied by Black Bear Run became available. The water system is now part of the Cooper Township Municipal Authority.
Mr. Force said Grassflat always had a good ball team, the Grassflat Miners, well represented by Forces, including Mr. Force and his five brothers. The team won the pennant in the amateur baseball league in 1936 and 1937, going on to play in amateur tournaments in Dayton and Cleveland, Ohio.
“We had a good team and even though we couldn’t get anyone out to practice. It was during the Depression and people didn’t have cars,” he recalls.
Mr. Force also recalls some big fires in downtown Grassflat.
The Grassflat Fire Co. was organized in 1924 at a meeting in the United Mine Workers of America Hall with the equipment ordered being 40 buckets with round bottoms, two lanterns, three extension ladders and one roof hookladder. By the time the company went to its first parade, in Winburne in 1925, it had a Model T truck. Today it has its own modern building to house its equipment.
Current Post Master Tom Janosky said the streets of Grassflat were laid out in an orderly pattern by the coal company in the late 1800s. The town has two avenues, Grassflat and Cooper, with streets named after counties, such as Clearfield and Clinton.
It is now a quieter community than at the turn of the century but many residents find it to their liking.
Asked why he stayed in Grassflat for 80 years, Mr. Force said, “I GUESS I don’t know any better.”
But, more likely, he did know.

Fredrick Mohn of Clairton, PA, visited his grandmother, Mrs. William Kirkman.
Mr. and Mrs. Eric Eld and children Lawrence and Hedvig drove to Pittsburgh over the week end to visit relatives.
John Carlson of Detriot, Michigan is visiting his mother, Mrs. Anna Carlson who has been ill.
Mrs. Guy Johnson and daughter Vera attended the Order Eastern Star meeting held in Bellefonte Monday October 4th.
Miss Anna Saksa and John Lynch were married in the St. Peter and Paul Church in Grassflat, Saturday October 2nd, by Rev. Father Bachnach.
Mr. and Mrs. John Fenush and daughter Carol of Niagara Falls, N.Y. visited Andrew Fenush over the weekend.
Roy Shomo moved from Peale, Pa. into the house vacated by Gust Josephson.
Joesph Patrick left for Newark, N.J. to spend two weeks vacation.
Mrs. Violet Coleman and daughter Betty and Mr. Sten visited Mrs. Andrew Nazdom over the weekend.
Andrew Pitkosh, son of Joe Pitkash, was home from the Karthaus CCC camp over the weekend.
Mr. and Mrs. Micheal Terry and Charles Terry, of Pittsburgh, Pa, spent Sunday with their parents.
Mr. and Mrs. Andrew Petrof of Cleveland, Ohio are visiting at the home of John Petrof.
John Lynch Sr. and John Lynch Jr. and Andrew Saksa are drove to Cleveland Ohio last week.
Mrs. John Kuzila and children of Detroit Michigan are visiting at the John Lynch home.
Dr. J.D. Doyle purchased a new Oldsmobile.