Many people will think of Weirton for the way it is now. A long-forgotten run down steel town in the northern panhandle of the state. Living some thirty miles away most of my life, I grew up spending summers here with my Grandmother, Aunts, Uncles and many cousins. The town was a source of many good memories and fun adventures. On many weekends we would load up in the Kusko`s old blue Chevy pick-up and head for Atwood lake in Ohio to do some camping. My Grandmother lived on the hill across from the rail yard on the west end of town.
4045 Brooke St.
In the 1960`s and 70`s Weirton Steel Company employed a large portion of the city`s population and my early childhood memories were of a bustling town, full of energy. My Father and Grandfather put in several decades working in the tin mill. I can remember my Dad would get finished with his midnight shift and show up in the morning at my Grandmother`s house with fresh bread and donuts from the bakery. I can still smell the toast from the thick Italian bread, and hear the laughter over some bit of nonsense.
2014
Some of my fondest memories of Weirton are hanging out with my cousins, making up games, hiking on "Monster Mountain", swimming at Starvagi`s pool, and setting up telescopes between my Aunt and Grandmother`s house in the late hours of the night.
While most of my family there has moved or passed away, I still return to my Aunt and Uncle`s house on Christmas eve every year to catch up on old times and talk into the night with some of my family. I always make it a point before I arrive to drive up through Brooke Street past my Grandmother`s old house and down around the S-bend. It seems now like another world, lost in my dreams, but never to be forgotten.
On January 25, 2014 my cousin Dan and I set out on a cold snowy day to capture some images of the town as it is today. We decided to head to the far end of town where the steel mill is just a whisper of what it once was. Much of it has been torn down, leaving only rusted remains of old buildings, cranes and smoke stacks. It leaves you feeling somewhat empty, but in the same sense it`s like a living, full-sized museum of the steel industry. One day only fields of rusted equipment and concrete pads will be all that remain, but the memories of my childhood in the town of steel will be some of the best.