Some time ago, Shelley Wygant was browsing Rivertown Antiques in Ambridge when something caught her eye. It was a photograph that she ended up taking home with her — and that she believes has historical significance.
“It was like 20 bucks,” Wygant, 66, of Bell Acres, said of the photo.
The picture depicts the original Sewickley Bridge in the midst of its construction, with a tag that dates the image to 1909. The Sewickley Bridge first opened in 1911 and is called “the most visible symbol of Sewickley” by the Sewickley Valley Historical Society.
Wygant is a native of Hopewell Township. She and her husband, Jeffrey — also a native of Western Pennsylvania — moved back to the local area in 2019.
“I went to Westminster College and then moved away to Texas, went to Washington, D.C., Ellicott City, Md. … As we sort of headed toward retirement, we were like, ‘Hey, we should come back home.’ ”
They first settled back in Rosslyn Farms before purchasing a house in Bell Acres in 2021.
“When my parents lived in Hopewell and my husband and I used to come and visit them, we’d come to Sewickley and stroll around the town, buy stuff. So we have an affinity for the place,” Wygant said.
The house that they purchased dates back to 1815, Wygant said, and has been a big project all on its own.
“We’re restoring this house, it’s amazing, and we’re on a whole journey on that. My husband and I were both advertising writers, and we love history,” she said.
That love of history is what made Wygant stop and examine the photograph at Rivertown Antiques.
“I see this giant photograph, and it’s a cool photograph,” she said.
Unsolved mystery
So far, Wygant has been unable to figure out the exact source of the photo. A representative from Rivertown Antiques was also unsure of its provenance when asked for comment by the Sewickley Herald, saying that it likely came from an estate sale.
The Sewickley Bridge was built to span the Ohio River between Sewickley and Coraopolis. It opened officially in September 1911, allowing for more ease of transport between towns in the area.
“The timeline for completion was set at November 1910, and groundbreaking ceremonies took place on both sides of the bridge on July 21, 1909,” said Amanda Schaffer, executive director of the Sewickley Valley Historical Society.
The For Pitt Bridge Co. was awarded the contract for the superstructure, and the build began in July 1909. In the photograph, the two end parts of the bridge’s structure are visible, with the middle section still open, awaiting construction that would link the two sides of the river together for almost seven decades before it is rebuilt.
It was built as the result of an effort by the citizenry, and it was a major point of pride for residents. When the structure was eventually failing in the late 1970s, the government simply wanted to remove the bridge.
“Again, the community came together, they formed a committee to save the Sewickley Bridge and they petitioned and pressured the government and they secured the funding,” Schaffer said.
Schaffer also said that there were government photos taken of the building process, but there are also a lot of historical images of the bridge.
“It also becomes kind of a scenic landmark for the area, so there’s a lot of images of railroad postcards,” she said.
Wygant wished that she could find the original photograph of the black-and-white print.
“Because it was blown up, it wasn’t as crisp as it could be. It kind of looked like maybe a government project to say, ‘here, we’re taking pictures of important things.’”
She hasn’t found out the picture’s origins yet and is hopeful that someone might just happen to have more information on it. Instead, she and her husband have taken a different route; they’ve commissioned a painting of the original photograph to hang in their home.
The artist
The couple became acquainted with artist Wiley Purkey during their time living in his hometown of Ellicott City, Md. Purkey, 72, has used oil paintings to preserve the history of the city, concentrating on architectural subjects. He is known as “the Paints of Ellicott City.”
“I got my first oil painting set at 13,” Purkey said. “That was 60 years ago.”
The painting is large — Purkey said that it is about 20” by 48” — and took him almost two years to complete.
“It’s framed with an antique quilting frame, I acquired that and chopped it up and made a frame,” he said.
While the painting is based on the photograph that Wygant provided, Purkey went much further with his artistic vision. He examined other historic photos, as well as current views from Google Earth, to create the vivid world of the painting.
“Just to see what would make sense. Where there would have been lighting on the shore at that time,” Purkey said.
He also made additions to the painting to create movement and life to the scene.
“I tried to figure out what boats would have been sailing around. Mostly, I think I put a few pleasure boats in, smaller boats.”
Another large change was the addition of a train to the landscape.
“I noted in the lower right-hand corner of the original photograph a railroad track. So I pondered what to do with that, and it came to me in a dream,” Purkey said.
So he added in a train chugging on the tracks, the smoke from the steam engine trailing like a banner across the bridge and pulling the painting together.
The black-and-white moment is also black-and-white no more.
“I translated it into a beautiful, colorful sunset kind of thing; it’s very richly colored,” he said. “I’m an artist, you know? You just look at black and white and go, ‘well, I see what that should be.’”
Purkey has seen the changes in his own community over the years, and he feels a desire and obligation to record those transitional periods through his art. This work is very much in that vein.
“I remember and appreciate what it was like before,” he said. “I think that’s why it’s important to acknowledge our history and look at images and remember and appreciate the changes that have changed. It’s a saying: the only thing inevitable in life is change.”
Wygant and her husband went down to Maryland recently to pick up their new painting, which will hang prominently in their historic home.
“We’re excited to get it because we had a blank space above the fireplace,” she said.