DESCRIPTION:

TRAGEDY AT THE DUQUESNE MINE RESERVIOR,
JANUARY 20, 1916
From the rememberances of Robert L. Jenkins, formerly of Bradenville.
About Saxman Run, the creek that runs through Bradenville.  I was very familiar with the little run, but I never knew it had a name.  This is the little run that comes from West Derry and runs through what used to be the Caldwell Farm, just below the Bradenville School.  When we were teenagers growing up, it was our swimming hole in the summer and our skating rink in the winter.

There was a coal mine on the south side of the Derry-Bradenville Road called the Duquesne Mine.  The mine needed a water supply for its coke ovens.  The mine built a small reservior on this run in the hollow on the south side of Bradenville. On Friday afternoon, January 20,1916, just after school has been dismissed for the week, four boys with a little wagon went out on the ice that had covered the reservior, and just as they got out to the deepest part, broke through the ice.  Their screams were heard by Charles Shanefelt, who lived just above the reservior.  He ran down to the reservior and jumped in to help them and all five were drowned.  Mr. Shanefelt was married, and left his wife and three small children, two boys and a girl.

I was about 11 at the time and I remember well the afternoon and evening.  The weather had been pretty cold for a while and the ice was pretty thick o the dm, but the weather had gotten milder for several days and the ice had softened up.  The boys'names were Minno Lizzi, a Meline boy, and two Spanilla boys.

This was probably the worst tragedy that ever happened to this small community. I can still see a big part of the residents surrounding the reservior that afternoon and evening, watching the rescuers trying to find the bodies of the victims.  The floodgates of the dam had to be blown out and the reservior drained before the bodies were recovered late that night.
Due to the efforts of Mr. Thomas Whiteman of the Latrobe Bulletin, Charles Shanefelt was awarded the Carnegie Hero Medal, a new home was built for the family, and other support was provided.

This all happened about 80 years ago, the little run is still running, and I am sure it had a big part in the later history of Bradenville.  This is the run that empties into the Loyalhanna Creek in First Ward Latrobe.
(Story courtesy of "The Independent," Latrobe, PA, Nov. 22,1995 and the Archives of the Latrobe Area Historical Society, Latrobe, PA)

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