As Rick Weishar considered the century-long history of his native Logans Ferry Heights neighborhood, he began to tear up.
“You can’t believe how proud it makes me,” Weishar said as he stepped into the firehall where’s he’s volunteered for more than three decades.
Wedged on a hilltop overlooking the Allegheny River, Logans Ferry Heights sits in Plum — but just barely. The community of about 200 houses is less than a mile from the borough’s border with New Kensington and Lower Burrell and just across the river from Springdale.
Unlike much of Plum, where mid-century suburban housing plans tend to dominate, Logans Ferry Heights is a compact grid of modest homes that mirror one another.
Weishar, 59, is a third- generation resident of “the hill,” as locals call it.
And to him — and plenty of his neighbors — there’s no better place to be.
“I would never have wanted to grow up any place else but here,” Weishar said.
Company town to proud homeowners
Like many neighborhoods in the Alle-Kiski Valley, Logans Ferry Heights had its genesis in the region’s industrial rise.
It was laid out as a company town by Allegheny Pittsburgh Coal Co. for employees of its Logans Ferry Mine in the early 1920s.
The name “Logans Ferry,” however, comes from early 19th-century landowner Alexander Logan, who operated a ferry service on the Allegheny River, according to Frank Kordalski, a historian with the Allegheny Foothills Historical Society.
The coal from the Plum-side of the river was used to fuel the still active Springdale Generating Station across the river in Springdale Township. The station now runs on natural gas, however.
Rather than ferry the coal back and forth, the company carved two now-defunct tunnels beneath the river as an easier connection between the generator and its fuel.
Weishar’s grandfather — during his 45 years working in the mine — mainly served as a “motorman,” carting coal to and fro beneath the Allegheny, he said.
Early stories of the Logans Ferry Heights neighborhood depict a place more akin to a labor camp than the independent village it later became.
In “Barns, Barking and Boney Piles,” a collection of oral histories about Plum, early residents described the neighborhood as surrounded by imposing fencing and patrolled by a private, company-directed police force.
Those private police, common in early industrial areas, often served more to drive out union organizers than prevent crime, according to Kordalski.
“It really was quite bad,” he said.
In the early days, residents didn’t own their homes, instead paying rent to the coal company.
By the 1940s, however, the fierce United Mine Workers union had organized Logans Ferry, and the mine came to be owned directly by West Penn Power.
The company allowed workers to purchase their homes for around $2,500, and the more modern identity of the neighborhood began to develop.
By 1968, the mine, whose original entrance sat near the current site of Hetrick Manufacturing, was closed.
Unlike many other post-industrial neighborhoods that faced plummeting populations, many of the original families opted to stay in Logans Ferry Heights.
Staying resilient
The neighborhood doesn’t have all the amenities it once boasted — like a small grocery store, a bus line and even an elementary school.
But more than a century after the houses were built, almost all remain occupied and well-kept, many with additions and other improvements. In the middle of the neighborhood sits a neatly-kept park with a modern playground and basketball court.
Weishar lives in the house his grandparents originally purchased on Memorial Drive, the closest thing the neighborhood has to a main thoroughfare.
“We’re one big happy family — half of us are related,” he said.
Don Imm, 68, and his wife, April, have lived in the neighborhood for more than 40 years.
Don grew up just off the hill “proper,” near the site of the former Logans Ferry School, where his father worked as a janitor. April, however, originally comes from Ohio.
“The first time driving up that hill, I thought, ‘Oh my gosh, where are we going?’” April, 61, said.
Aside from visions of an Outer Banks beach home, the couple never really thought about leaving, they said.
The neighborhood was quiet, safe — and perhaps most importantly — home.
“I always tell people, ‘You should move up here,’” Don said.
As he recently repaired the eaves of their home, Don found dozens of admission tickets for various shows at the neighborhood school, many nearly a century old.
He’s not sure of their origin, but Matt Austin, 44, said he had a similar experience when redesigning his kitchen.
Austin, the chief of Logans Ferry VFD, said he found a small identity token from the mine in the wall.
A century of history leaves traces.
The fire department
Perhaps the longest-standing continuous institution in the neighborhood is Logans Ferry VFD, founded in 1949.
Austin estimates almost every home in the neighborhood has at least some association with the department.
Austin’s family moved to Logans Ferry Heights in the 1980s when he was 5.
He left the neighborhood for more than a decade, but when he was again searching for a home in 2015, he returned to the hill.
“It’s still a ‘cup-of-sugar’ neighborhood,” Austin said, meaning neighbors feel comfortable asking for a cup of sugar when in need.
Since the foundation of the fire department, there’s always been a Weishar on the rolls.
Rick’s grandfather, a charter member, spent 30 years in the department. His father, Richard, a 90-year-old retired steelworker, served another 25.
And since the 1980s, Rick, who worked for decades as a machinist and now takes shifts as a janitor at Plum High School, has been an active member.
“Logans Ferry and the fire department are in my heart,” he said. “I’ll always be part of Logans Ferry, and Logans Ferry will always be a part of me.”
Logans Ferry VFD used to have an active social club — complete with a bar and a semi-regular Slovenian polka band — but the club folded in 2019 due to slumping demand, Weishar said.
Still, the fire hall is rented out nearly every weekend for social events, and Lenten fish fries remain a hallmark of the neighborhood, he said.
The hall was also the place Weishar’s parents met and later married.
Bill and Karen Novak, both 68, also celebrated their wedding reception at the hall.
Past and future
The Novaks spoke as they sat together outside on a porch swing after wrapping up a conversation with their next-door neighbor.
Bill is a Logans Ferry native, while Karen was a later hill addition, originally coming from Plum’s Holiday Park neighborhood.
But she’s learned to embrace her higher-elevation home.
“We’re hill people,” she said with a laugh.
In their backyard stands a proud red maple tree that the two planted when they purchased their home 42 years ago.
Like their neighborhood, the tree — a gift from Karen’s parents — has grown and changed over the decades.
Recently, the Novaks have seen more young people moving into the neighborhood, often using the small properties as starter homes.
It’s a trend Weishar said he’s also noticed.
He estimates about half of the neighborhood has roots in the area while the others are relative newcomers.
In the latter camp is Eric Smurphat, who moved to Logans Ferry Heights with his wife from Tarentum about seven years ago.
He said he doesn’t have any family connection to the neighborhood and mostly keeps to himself.
The neighborhood’s main virtues, he said: It’s quiet and affordable.
“It’s pretty peaceful up here,” Smurphat said.
Though he said he may relocate soon to be closer to a new job, for now, he said he and his wife enjoy sitting on their front porch during nice days.
As for Weishar, his home is a lifelong commitment.
“I was born here; I’m going to die here — there’s no in between,” he said.
Isolated as it is, Logans Ferry Heights may be the most connected to the larger region on the 4th of July, when it’s elevation makes it a prime fireworks viewing spot.
Each Independence Day, Weishar said he stands at the fire department to catch fireworks shows in New Kensington, Oakmont, Springdale, Tarentum — and occasionally, with a crane of the neck — Pittsburgh.