Historian Tom Powers appeals to author of Blawnox centenary book

When the village of Hoboken – present-day Blawnox – was first laid out in the late 1860s, it was created to support the contractors, and later employees, of the Allegheny County Workhouse , now extinct, in the nearby town of O’Hara.

“When Hoboken was first laid out, it was just another land deal,” said historian Tom Powers.

“There wasn’t a lot of enthusiasm. It has become such a beautiful suburban community with so many more riverside amenities than you think it would have.

As the borough approaches its centennial in April 2025, Powers has been hired to compile a book of its highlights.

“I hope the Blawnox book will give people a better appreciation and a stronger foundation for how the community was designed and how it grew,” he said.

Powers teased, “We’re also going to clear up some misconceptions.”

In addition to private research through the Heinz History Center, Powers will walk around town, take photos and speak with residents and business owners to collect stories, said director Kathy Ulanowicz.

“We have a committee working on the celebration, and we thought Mr. Powers certainly knew the local history and would be the best person to help gather and coordinate information to mark this occasion,” Ulanowicz said.

Powers hopes to fill in the gaps in commonly shared information and said there will be some unexpected details.

As for how Hoboken got its name, Powers said, “For years the people of Hoboken, New Jersey claimed that the name mimicked theirs and came from Native Americans who were in that area, but it seems more and more that it is a Dutch name. .”

There was also a theory that the name was a play on the term used for the wanderers who populated the Workhouse – hobos.

The river town sandwiched between O’Hara and Harmar was renamed in a nod to the community’s most important industry and largest employer, the Blaw-Knox Co., and was incorporated as of Blawnox in 1925.

“We’ll talk about the Lehman family (founders of Blaw-Knox Co.) and highlight where the borough is today,” he said.

The company officially closed on December 31, 1991.

“When you have a borough that has been so heavily invested in a business and then they leave, you leave a really big void.

“I hope people will like to learn more about the community and use it as something to remember the centenary.”

Despite his familiarity with local history, Powers said he was surprised by a few discoveries while researching for the book.

“I want to take my time digging this stuff up,” he said. “I’m trying to determine the official start of the borough, as new research indicates something other than what we thought.”

The 48-page memento will be published before the centenary.

Powers previously published O’Hara’s history book, “Portrait of an American Community,” which chronicles how the township evolved from a frontier land into a modern community.

More recently, he co-authored “The Allegheny Arsenal Handbook,” which chronicles 112 years of the Union Army’s Lawrenceville manufacturing facility, which closed in 1926.