A Martinsburg Boy's Memories and Stories from the 1950s

John Bush was raised in Martinsburg and graduated from Central High in 1961. He spent most of his adult life in the Pacific Northwest. He has many memories as a boy in the 1950s that give some insight to the people and culture of Martinsburg in the 1950s.

John likes to tell stories and over the years he has repeated the stories of his youth many times. His belief is that those years in Martinsburg influenced him all of his life. Some of the stories are historical in nature, some are colorful, and some are personal. He wishes that you enjoy them.

ELECTRICAL CONTRACTOR

There were two major electrical contractors in Martinsburg during the 1950s: Harold Blattenberger and W. Floyd Bush. Both were said to have more than 150 employees at times. They were the largest employers in town with the exception of the shoe factory. Farm-related businesses such as the mill, Burchfield’s, Forshey’s, and Wineland’s were also important.

My dad worked as a foreman for Floyd, his brother. I worked for my uncle for several summers, generally as a laborer. Harold was also an uncle as he was married to Verna, one of my dad’s sisters. My memories are based experiences at jobs in central Pennsylvania and on occasion West Virginia.

Floyd got his start during the Depression building power lines. He used Model A Fords that could pull poles as trailers and haul gear at the same time. I was told that most of the work was done by manual labor, including setting the poles, because early boom trucks were not very mobile.

The Rural Electrification Act of 1936 was a boon to Floyd. In 1938 he was the first manger of Valley Rural Electric Cooperative Huntington and their first line extended for 250 miles with a substation at Williamsburg. I found one contract listed on the internet that Floyd won as a private contractor in 1941 from the Department of Agriculture to build a 48-mile line in Pennsylvania.

As a young lad, I sometimes traveled with Dad and recall one trip to the countryside west of Chambersburg in a two-ton truck loaded with cross arms.

Floyd’s men and trucks were strung out for miles as we dropped off cross-arms where every pole was to be set.

The most important vehicles were referred to as line trucks. Floyd had Fords and Diamond T trucks with cabs over the engines that sat so high off ground that as a kid I had a hard time climbing up to the seats. Each line truck had large utility boxes on their sides with booms extending out for setting poles. They carried the tools, ropes, water and the linemen’s climbing gear. The linemen were the best-paid men on the crews, and I believe it was to be considered to be one of the better jobs one could get in Martinsburg.

Harold Blattenberger originally worked for Floyd but then started his own company. His crews traveled farther away from Martinsburg and his trucks occupied a small lot next to his home on East Penn Street. On the internet, I found one contract in 1945 that Harold obtained to build a 100-mile line in upstate New York funded by the Department of Agriculture.

Harold’s vehicles were mostly GM products while Floyd’s were primarily Fords. Floyd had a central lot, presently accessed by Bush Alley. Harold later had a large lot and buildings at the end of Blattenberger Street. In the fifties, Floyd Bush had a full-time mechanic and helper to maintain his large fleet of trucks and station wagons.

My dad worked in the office in the evenings, and at an early age I learned to drive the rigs to the gas pump on the lot and fill them up. My friend Bill Reese lived across from the Roxy Theater on West Penn, a block away from the Bush lot. He recalled that he was often awakened by the trucks leaving for job sites early in the morning. I think everyone knew about Floyd because of his numerous trucks crossing town. I drove some of the rigs to and from jobs and thought I was cool, waving to anyone I knew.

In addition to power line construction, house wiring was also a booming industry as access to power expanded. New homes were being built and old homes needed updated to accommodate washers and dryers. Old knob-and-tube wiring needed to be replaced. There were many individual electricians who had their own business or did part-time work on weekends.

In the early 1950s, Floyd Bush was the largest electrical contractor in the Cove and, I was told, one of the largest in central Pennsylvania. A lot of his work was for coal companies and for Penelec, which had become the primary utility company in central Pennsylvania.

In 1957 and 1958, things changed for several reasons. Most areas in the state had at that point in time access to power, so new construction of lines to rural areas was slowing. In addition, most old homes had been rewired.

Penelec was unionized as were many of the coal mines but W. Floyd Bush Electric Co. remained a non-union company. Floyd laid off a large number of men in 1957 due to loss of work, generally rumored to have been caused by his reluctance to unionize. I recall that some of the men did not want to belong to the union and considered it to be a badge of honor to be called a scab. However, 1957 was the onset of the first major post-war recession, which also was a cause for the lack of work. Blattenberger unionized and had adapted to traveling further away from Martinsburg for work.

It is my perception that as these changes occurred, Blattenberger became the larger of the two employers as Bush downsized.

Floyd did make changes that kept the company in business for another decade. In the late 1950s, new schools were being built throughout Pennsylvania in response to efforts to consolidate school districts and close one-room schools. Bush Electric began to obtain low bids on many of these jobs and several of the linemen became electricians.

I recall major jobs in Altoona, Martinsburg, State College, Windber, Waterside, Huntington, Creston, and Orbisonia. These jobs often lasted for two years but required only four or five men at each site. Just one line construction crew was maintained that did work for some local coal mines and in West Virginia. Blattenberger continued to focus on power line construction.

There were conflicts between Floyd’s men and the union men working for the other contractors on several job sites. It was not unusual to walk past men on picket lines carrying signs that read “W.F. Bush is unfair to organized labor.” I was stopped several times on the job by union men who harassed me because they didn’t believe I was old enough to be employed legally. Sometimes I was reported because I supposedly was not qualified, nor paid at the appropriate level, to do the specific job I was doing at the time.

In the sixties, many of Floyd’s men, including my dad, found work elsewhere as W. Floyd Bush Electric Co. faded. H. D. Blattenberger, Inc., flourished for many years. I did not have the basic skills for handyman work and never became an electrician, but the many experiences I had while working with numerous men became useful in later life. I was very fortunate to have summer jobs to help pay my way through college.