The Hyde-Murphy Company
of Ridgway, Pennsylvania, built many houses for the Coal Company such as this
abandoned one in McIntyre. Some houses were moved to McIntyre by train from Soldier,
a defunct Coal Company town in Jefferson County, Pennsylvania. A local contractor,
P. J. McGovern, was also awarded a contract from the Coal Company in 1910 for
the building of additional company houses in and around McIntyre. This photo is an example of a single-style house. It had two bedrooms on the second floor and three rooms on the first floor which included a shed kitchen that can be seen at the extreme right hand side of the photo. It also had a root cellar where meats, fruits, and vegetables canned by the housewife were stored. Although space was limited and families sometimes large, a number of families took in boarders for extra income. By 1928 McIntyre had grown to 55 double and 17 single houses.
Photo: collection of the author.
Richard H. Quin, Indiana County, Pennsylvania: an Inventory of Historic Engineering and Industrial Sites
(Washington, D.C.,: National Park Service, Department of the Interior, 1993), 80-81.
Indiana Evening Gazette, Indiana, Pennsylvania, 25 August 1910.