Photos Copyright 2008 by Chris Lareau
The only thing standing in the way of a rail museum and community center in Sheffield may be ownership of the property.
In 1968, a gubernatorial campaign brought the last passenger train to Warren County. Arriving in style at the now demolished Warren Station next to the old Struthers Wells iron works, candidate Milton Shapp won his bid to become governor of Pennsylvania after a whistle stop here.
Exactly 40 years later, the last train station still standing in Warren County may or may not become a center of a community that once was the industrial center for our area. Sheffield, PA was the home of the largest lumber yard east of the Mississippi, according to local history buff Dennis Sturdevant. Sheffield was also the leather tanning capital of the world, using the bark of plentiful hemlock trees to make tannic acid.
In 1968, a gubernatorial campaign brought the last passenger train to Warren County. Arriving in style at the now demolished Warren Station next to the old Struthers Wells iron works, candidate Milton Shapp won his bid to become governor of Pennsylvania after a whistle stop here.
Restoring the one-time dilapidated Sheffield Train Station has become an avocation for Mr. Sturdevant, who with at least 125 donors hopes it will turn into a museum. Nearly every window had been broken and they are now all repaired. A walk through the door is a step back into more than a century ago after the structure was built in 1880.
Soon there may be new tracks laid alongside the Sheffield station in the grassy area seen above between the current tracks and the structure itself. And that is what has Sturdevant a little worried. With the new business in oil exploration a sand fracking facility has moved in next door, right next door to the station, and it needs room to expand--right across the front of the museum-to-be. Fracking sand is an essential material used in oil drilling and the business next door is producing industrial quantities of it for a much anticipated oil boom.
With the possibility of more rail installation in the future, transfer of ownership of the structure has been put at a standstill. The proposed new tracks may create a safety hazard because it places a train car just 24 inches from the station's roof. Sturdevant looks at the rails already piled up that may be used to run by the station and explains that all restoration on the structure has stopped. "We don't want to improve it any more if it looks like we won't get ownership."
More than a year has gone by since the Sheffield Museum organization first applied for transfer of ownership of the structure, but a meeting scheduled for 9:30 a.m. on July 3 at the station may bring good results. Sturdevant will meet then with an official of the state Public Safety Commission along with Sheffield's Mainstreet Manager, Kathy Reitinger, and a local agent of the railroad to discuss the fate of their community project.
Looking out a window built for old-time station masters so they could see oncoming trains, Sturdevant recounts how local residents have responded to the proposed Sheffield Rail Museum. But from the window he can see a rail car filled with fracking sand. He hopes the new rail extension will stop at the still-standing telegraph pole about 30 feet in the distance.
Donations of historic timepieces have poured in from local residents who seem to have come out of the woodwork once they heard of the museum. Sturdevant proudly displays a collection of folk art that includes very large-scale engines and cars built by hand, representing hundreds of hours of craftsmanship. His proudest acquisition, after a restored coach car housed in a nearby warehouse, is the photographic collection of a well-known local professional, Lyle Keller, who did most of his work in the 1930s. It is chock full of black and white shots of the 19 engines that used to run by the station. It is a gem that Keller's descendants have entrusted.
Business brought the railroad and this station to Sheffield and the would-be museum director also knows that business can take it away.
He hopes, though, that in his village there is enough room for both business and pleasure. He wonders if 24 inches is room enough.
photos Copyright 2008
Follow-Up: Officials meet to discuss future of Museum
