Drivers traveling along Uschak Road in Derry Township pass a rather eye-catching landmark as they near the road’s northern terminus.
A gallows pole — a wooden scaffold with an elevated beam and a noose hanging from it — stands in the front yard of township resident Bryan Piper. It has been in place for the past few years but has gotten attention recently, with multiple people reaching out to local news outlets after seeing it while driving.
Piper said this is the first time he’s heard of anyone having concerns about it.
“I put it up for Halloween a few years ago and never took it down,” he said. “I was going to ‘hang’ the Grinch from it at Christmas, Cupid for Valentine’s Day and a turkey for Thanksgiving just for laughs, and that’s it.”
Piper took issue with a February report by KDKA regarding the gallows pole.
“It has nothing to do with race,” Piper said. “(The reporter) from KDKA is the one who made it racist. She needs to go back to school and study history. When people were lynched, they threw the rope over a tree branch. They weren’t taken to the gallows.”
Derry Township Supervisor Jim Prohaska said he spoke with people living nearby when Piper initially erected the gallows.
“It was a joke for Halloween, and most of the neighbors I spoke with recognized it was meant as a joke,” Prohaska said. “There was no prejudice behind it, that I’m aware of. There’s been a skeleton hanging from it before, there’s been a log hanging from it because he’s in the construction business.”
Prohaska said Piper is not violating any township ordinances.
“It’s on private property, so there isn’t much we’d be able to do,” he said.
Piper said he’s tired of talking about it.
“It’s part of history,” he said. “That’s how they punished people — by public execution.”