Heidelberg History

History of Heidelberg:

A Brief History of Heidelberg

Incorporated in 1903. Named for the German University city by General John Neville on April 5th, 1788, who had received property in the area in 1788 as payment for Military Service. The General collected whiskey tax from farmers in the area. Joseph E. McCabe and his family were the first to settle on this tract. They built two homes and cattle barns an continued to farm the land until 1885. By year 1902the population had grown to 300 inhabitants and some of these residents (93 in fact), signed a petition to be presented to the court of Alleghany County in December 1902 for the purpose of incorporating the Village of Heidelberg as a borough.

The Post Office Department assigned a Post Office for the Borough because Heidelberg was in conflict with another Post Office by the same name. The Post Office was named Louperex, the name suggested by our first Post Mistress. The name derived from Louisiana Purchase Expeditions. The court assigned the Borough a separate school district. The new school board removed the one-room school rooms and erected a two-story frame school building on Ellsworth Avenue.

In 1959 a new school building was opened for the children in the borough of Heidelberg as our school was then a part of the Chartiers Valley Schools. The Heidelberg Elementary School on Ellsworth Avenue has children in kindergarten thru sixth grades- until the school district closed the school and bussed our students to other schools in the district.

History of the Heidelberg Mission

The Heidelberg Mission was started by the First Christian Church of Carnegie in 1904, and was taken over by the Pittsburgh Presbytery in 1907. Services were held in the old schoolhouse until 1917, when a building was placed on a lot on Walnut Street near Third, that had been donated by Mrs. Margaret McCabe Cubbage. This building was enlarged in 1921. In 1918 the Mission has it's first full-time missionary, Miss Rose Jindra, who served until 1932. From that time until 1949 the work was carried on by missionaries Willa Steen, Thelma Darrall, and Lela Roth. In 1949 the building was completely renovated into a chapel, with regular church services, conducted by Mr. Harry McMillan of Dormont, a reality served first by the Rev. Lester Phillips. The first funeral service held in the church was that of Joseph B. Logan in 1951; and the first wedding was that of Susan McCabe and David Kelly in 1957. In 1958 the Heidelberg Church merged with the Woodville Church to form the Chartiers Valley United Presbyterian Church, with the Rev. Mr. Phillips as Pastor. The Present pastor of the combined churches is the Rev. John Yohe, who is very active in many phases of the work of the Heidelberg Volunteer Fire Department.

Police/Fire Dept. | Wrights-Seafood-Inn | Explosion-at-Heidelberg | Thomas-Towing