- [Narrator] This show was made possible in large part, really, by your contributions to WQED.

- [Narrator] This program is part of WQED'S Pittsburgh History series.

- [Narrator] We dedicate this program to the Coraopolis Bridge.

(large explosion sounding) (train whistle sounding) It was blown up and hauled away in March of 1994.

It was old and weak, but it had a nice kind of industrial beauty and a distinguished history.

It was built in 1892 as the Sixth Street Bridge across the Allegheny at downtown Pittsburgh.

Someone, apparently working for Thomas Edison, made this silent movie of the bridge in 1902.

It would've been a toll bridge back then, and it was sometimes called the Federal Street Bridge.

In 1927, when it had to be replaced, the bridge was taken apart and shipped down the Ohio and rebuilt over the river's back channel between Neville Island and Coraopolis.

(large explosion sounding) Now it's gone.

Getting rid of old things is part of progress, but people miss a lot of stuff that's gone.

(large explosion sounding) - Look what you have.

- [Narrator] So we've put together a sort of scrapbook of old movies and pictures, postcards and snapshots of places and things that aren't there anymore or aren't functioning anymore anyway, like the old Greater Pittsburgh Airport.

We'll look at inclines that are gone.

We'll dip into a couple big old swimming pools and check out a drive-in or two.

It doesn't matter if you remember these things or not, it's just fun to hear about old stuff and what made it special, like an old radio show, like "Party Line."

- [Wendy] Hello, "Party Line."

- [Narrator] And channel four's "Ricki and Copper."

- Hi.

- [Narrator] We'll remember Pittsburgh short-lived Maulers and we'll ride around two old amusement parks near McKeesport.

This program is a kind of follow up, volume two, you might say, of a show we put together called "Things that Aren't There Anymore."

It was about stuff like the old Allegheny County Fair, Westview Park and Forbes Field, among other things.

Well, the idea for these programs came to me one day when I was driving through the Liberty Tubes.

I thought, "Hey, there used to be old neon signs in here," signs hanging from the ceiling that said, "Do not cross center line."

They're long gone.

But I thought we could make a show about stuff like that.

Cool old things that aren't around anymore.

Well, the Liberty Tubes are still here.

Finished in the 1920s, they made living in the South Hills a lot easier.

You didn't have to go over Mount Washington anymore.

That big long hill that rises up from the south shore of the Monongahela across from downtown Pittsburgh had been a big barrier, a high steep-sided hill that was hard to climb.

Since the late 19th century, Pittsburghers have relied on odd little cars that travel on steep tracks up and down the hillsides.

(old time music) Everybody in Pittsburgh calls them inclines, but they're technically funiculars or funicular railways, and most of them were originally called incline planes.

Today the Monongahela Incline still runs up and down between Carson Street and Grandview Avenue.

Built in 1870, it was the first passenger incline in the city.

It was so successful that they doubled it, building a bigger freight incline right next to it, big enough to haul cars and other vehicles.

The freight incline lasted from 1884 till 1935.

The smaller passenger incline still hauls, commuters, shoppers and tourists up and down by Station Square.

Now, the other incline that's still here, with the little red cars that have become symbols of Pittsburgh, is the Duquesne Incline.

It's just another mile or so west along Carson Street and Grandview.

The Duquesne Incline tried to close in 1963 and it probably would've become something else that's gone, but the people in the neighborhood at the top, which is called Duquesne Heights, found a way to save the Incline.

People had learned to love and rely on these odd little funiculars.

- [Ruth] They were so important to a small cul-de-sac area, such as the Heights, that it was just impossible to suppose we could exist without the Incline.

- [Narrator] The Society for the Preservation of the Duquesne Heights Incline is led by Ruth and David Miller, who still live near the upper station.

They were instrumental in saving this unusual piece of Pittsburgh.

They helped figure out how to keep it running, and they know that Pittsburgh was once the world capital of incline planes.

- [Ruth] They were part of what you used to get to town if you lived on top of the hill.

Nobody thought they were as unusual as we think they are today.

And actually, I guess until we came along, no one thought they were worth saving.

- [David] If you didn't use the Incline, you had to use the wooden steps.

- [Ruth] Oh dear.

- And that was a project.

A latter day rumor, story that we've heard is that the incline company hired a ghost to discourage people from using the steps at night.

- [Narrator] David and Ruth have basically run this incline since they saved it in 1963.

They've never taken a penny for any of their work.

- [Passenger] We're gonna go on the Incline.

We're gonna see the city.

- It's just like a member of your family.

Why do you love your Aunt Susie?

Maybe you don't even know you do until someone says she's sick.

But this was part of us, I mean, it was the Incline.

- [Passenger] Oh, look, look.

See the car coming up.

Look, see the man in the car.

Look.

Come here.

Look over here.

We're gonna pass it.

There it goes.

- [Narrator] Ruth is the treasurer of this incline, and she and other volunteers restored the interiors of the cars.

- [Ruth] I gather that it's the creaking of the wood, the fact that it is wood and put together as wood should be, that has allowed the cars to last this long.

But they are beautiful wood.

- [Narrator] Because this Duquesne Incline is such a beauty, it makes you wonder about some of the other inclines that are long gone.

They weren't all on Mount Washington.

The biggest incline in the city ran from the Strip District up to the hill.

It was called the Penn Incline or the 17th Street Incline.

And you can see some stone work at the bottom of the hill where track supports were anchored.

The Penn Incline operated for 70 years, from 1883 till 1953.

It was probably the largest incline ever built anywhere.

The huge cars were designed to carry coal cars weighing up to 20 tons, as well as passengers.

It was also a bit notorious because in 1890 they built a casino at the upper station, the Penn Incline Resort.

Also, some drivers may remember billboards on the sides of the huge track where it crossed over Bigelow Boulevard.

Mike Eversmeyer, Historical Planner for the City of Pittsburgh, knows about some of the inclines that are gone.

- This is the former upper station of the Troy Hill Incline.

The Incline was built in 1887, and if you look out the back windows of the building here, you can see why it was built here.

Because at the bottom of the hill is Herr's Island and across the river is Lawrenceville, which are the places where the people in Troy Hill worked.

Now the Incline lasted for about 12 years until the coming of the electric street cars made it obsolete.

- [Narrator] Mike also knows about another north side incline that's been gone for a long time.

- We're walking along now on Henderson Street, which is the location of the former Nunnery Hill Incline, which ran up Henderson Street from Federal Street at the bottom of the hill, up along this stone wall, and then turned and went up to an upper station on what's now Meadville Street up in the Fineview neighborhood.

The Incline was supported by the retaining wall that you see immediately in front of you and protected from the hill by the secondary retaining wall further up.

But this was the first of the two inclines in Pittsburgh that had a big curve in it.

This one is less well known because it was gone before the turn of the century.

- [Narrator] There is one photo of this Nunnery Hill Incline with its curve on the north side, but the other, better known incline with a curve in it was over on the south side.

It was called the Knoxville or the Pittsburgh, or just the Big Incline.

Its cars were large enough to carry automobiles and heavy freight, as well as people, who could ride in the little compartment at the one side.

It looked like a moving building as it went over the road below.

It had the longest track of any Pittsburgh incline ever.

You can still see where its lower station used to be on Bradish Street between 11th and 12th streets.

It's like an industrial ruin, a metal awning and a fence in front of an empty lot.

Michael Wozniak and Tony Paperella live there on Bradish Street.

They remember the old incline well.

- My dad used to work up at Robson Park.

He used to take the Incline up every day and come back.

- And they had that big bend in it, you know, go up so far, then bend up to Allentown.

Everybody, "Oh, it's the seventh wonder of the world."

(laughing) I don't know if it was or not.

- [Narrator] There were lots of other inclines around.

Over beside the Armstrong tunnels, there's a steep flight of stairs where the Fort Pitt Incline once operated.

People could cross the old 10th Street Bridge from the south side and catch an Incline up to Duquesne University.

Now you have to go on foot.

There was once even a Patterson Heights Incline out in Beaver Falls.

The Castle Shannon Incline was the last of the Pittsburgh funiculars big enough to carry automobiles.

It went out of business in 1964.

That incline and over half of all the inclines in this area were designed and engineered by one man, Samuel Diescher.

Some say Desher.

That may be him in that old photo of the Nunnery Hill Incline.

Well, he also put together the Duquesne Incline.

Back then, it was steam powered.

Now it's run by an electrical motor, but it's still the original works.

David Miller was happy to show how this incline operates.

I know when I was a kid, I thought inclines were a sort of perfect machine that ran on some sort of counterweight system.

The one coming down pulled the other one up, but gravity alone can't do that.

An incline requires a system of gears and pulleys and wire rope to make it work.

- Looking out the car, looking up the hill from the car, you see two cables, one of which is a safety cable, and as it passes through the station, it goes out to the other car and that counterbalances the two cars.

The working, or pull cable, runs through these wheels on my right and in this case, this cable is passing out to the east car and letting it down.

Simultaneously, the other cable is passing on to the top of the drum.

- [Narrator] The huge drum is in the cable room next door, and it stays full because as one 800-foot cable is winding on, the other cable is winding off.

The electrical motor drives the huge gear wheel that turns the drum.

- The simplicity is fascinating.

That's why it's still here.

It's so simple, it's rugged and durable.

It has survived many, many decades of use and a few years of abuse, shall we say, and it's still here doing its job.

- [Narrator] David and Ruth Miller have spent countless hours restoring and preserving this incline.

It's a wonderful reminder of all the inclines that are gone.

It's a bit surprising though, Ruth and David don't own this funicular.

Their group, the nonprofit Society for the Preservation of the Duquesne Heights Incline, rents it for $1 a year from PAT, the Allegheny County Port Authority.

And do people think Ruth and David are crazy?

- Yes.

- Oh yeah.

- Oh absolutely.

Especially when they find out that we're not paid.

That puts the cap on it.

- [Narrator] You know, there's something about the Duquesne Incline Station.

Its age, the painted wood, the bright colors, the smell and the fact that you have to pay to take a ride, that can make you think of an old amusement park like Kennywood.

Or if you're from over near McKeesport and you're old enough, you might think of old Olympia Park.

Like Kennywood, it was a trolley park built by a streetcar company around the turn of the century to encourage more business.

In 1904, "The Pittsburgh Press" called Olympia Park, "The new breathing spot near McKeesport."

It was beside Walnut Street in Versailles and it flourished from 1902 to around 1942.

The owners promoted it as the largest natural park in Western Pennsylvania.

It had a lake, a skating rink, a rollercoaster, picnic pavilions and a baseball field with grandstands.

John Harris, one of Western Pennsylvania's greatest theatrical promoters and a pioneer in the showing of moving pictures, had a small theatrical company at the park.

And in 1905, it may have been Harris who brought one of the great early filmmakers, Edwin S Porter, to town to make a local version of one of Porter's most noteworthy movies, "The Great Train Robbery."

The Olympia Park version, called "The Juvenile," or "The Little Train Robbery" was apparently aimed at the youth market, featuring a young band of actors who plot and rob the miniature railroad that went through the park.

Porter is famous for his early work with chase scenes and there's one here, cutting through the wooded beauty of Olympia Park.

- Oh, it was the regular old amusement park.

The regular old time amusement park there.

I remember school picnic day when we rode up there on the streetcar and it was one of those cars that didn't have any sides on them, you know, it was an open-air streetcar.

- [Narrator] Peg Brindza from Elizabeth Township has a great scrapbook.

- Uh oh, uh oh, high school.

Now this one here was the picture that was taken at Olympia, the picnic day when it was so cold.

And "The Daily News" took our picture.

That was 1937, right in the middle.

Sorry to say, I don't have that bathing suit anymore.

- [Narrator] Olympia was a popular place for school, church and company picnics.

It must have been a beautiful and charming and exciting place for many years.

Now, it's a shopping center.

- Back then it was green, trees, shrubbery, down in this area towards where the bank sits, there was a rollercoaster, real, wild rollercoaster and over where the stores are today, where the shopping center is, there were other amusements.

Up on this end was the entrance to the park.

The old streetcar left you off right up there.

And over here in this area somewhere, they put in a beautiful swimming pool.

That was the old Olympia Park.

- [Narrator] There was another amusement park near McKeesport, this one in White Oak.

It was called Rainbow Gardens.

And even though Peg Brindza went to school picnics at Olympia, she really spent a lot more time at Rainbow Gardens.

- That was a very, very popular place.

- [Narrator] Rainbow Gardens began as just a roller skating rink and a swimming pool in the mid 1920s.

Church and school picnics were held there, too.

This group from the Temple B'nai Israel in McKeesport is obviously having a good time, probably in the '20s, in the very early days of the park.

Peg Brindza wasn't a regular out there till the late '30s and early '40s.

One day after she was pushed into the pool by a bratty kid, the lifeguard at Rainbow Gardens helped Peg find some dry clothes.

She ended up marrying him.

- Yeah, he was a guard, chief guard out there for a while.

Looked after all the business there for a while.

- [Narrator] In the summer of '41, Peg and her husband, Bill, lived above the bathhouse.

- [Peg] These are people who worked at the pool, the cleanup guys, the bathhouse girls.

- [Narrator] Peg's mother also worked at the park that summer running the refreshment stand.

- Now there's a pretty busy day, as you can see.

This is the cooks and some of the girls that helped.

It's a good thing I put some notes down because I probably would've forgotten some things.

Although your mind will recall it, you know, amazing.

- [Narrator] Sometimes Peg's husband and his brother would do a crazy diving act.

- [Peg] When they had a lot of people there, the pool was crowded, they would put on a show.

This is my crazy brother-in-law.

My husband played the straight part and my brother-in-law played the clown and they did diving exhibitions and so forth.

But that's what that was all about, that was in the crazy days.

- [Narrator] You know, I think everyone eventually misses those crazy days.

- [Peg] We grew out of our teens, you know.

You have family and you develop other interests and you don't go as often and then you're just, it's not the same, you know.

After a while, it's not the same.

- [Narrator] Rainbow Gardens didn't stay the same either.

In the late '40s, a drive-in theater was added at the one end of the property and then amusement rides were brought in to fill the space between the pool and the drive-in.

A rollercoaster was added in 1954 and the park owners liked to point out that Rainbow was the first park in the US that ever brought the rich boy and the poor boy together for one price.

For $2, anybody could ride all day.

The park was still going strong when it was forced to close in 1968.

The state wanted the property for a Route 48 expressway that never happened.

In the early '90s, a new shopping center was built on the old Rainbow Gardens site.

And although some nearby businesses have names that may remind you of the old Gardens, this new shopping center is called the Oak Park Mall.

Rainbow Gardens' mix of swimming pool, amusement park and drive-in was unusual, but you didn't have to go far to find another trio of places specializing in good times.

Up on Route 30 in North Versailles, you can still see where the Blue Dell Drive-in was.

The empty screen is still there, an old sign, too.

Beside it, you can see where a restaurant once stood.

That was the sight of the old Blue Dell Diner.

Then just below that, you can see the crumbling ruins of the Blue Dell swimming pool.

This triple Blue Dell complex, pool, diner and drive-in theater was owned by the Warren family.

Marty Warren took us back to the old pool.

He remembers its glory days.

- It's huge, it's a football field there.

And you put a lot of people in there.

(upbeat '50s style music) Hot day, you couldn't see nothing but bathing suits out there and towels.

You could walk across the heads in the pool area, that's how many people would go in there.

I used to keep 15 lifeguards on duty at all times.

This pool holds a million and a half gallon of water.

We have pumps that turn it over 17,500 gallon a minute.

We used to use two ton of chlorine a month here.

That's the liquid chlorine.

When the sun was out, you just baked, but it when it rained, you cried.

So that's the way it worked.

- [Narrator] The pool closed in the late '80s.

The Blue Dell Diner had been gone for years and the Blue Dell Drive-in had already stopped showing movies.

But the Warrens still own and operate a very busy drive-in, The Greater Pittsburgh, also on Route 30 just east of the Westinghouse Bridge.

It sits at the top of a tree-lined drive.

This one drive-in now has five different screens, each playing a double bill every night in the warm months.

Marty Warren, his wife Francis, and some relatives own and operate this place and they've run several other drive-ins that are gone.

But the family hasn't always been in show business.

- We all liked movies and we were, at the time, in the coal business, we had deep mining and strip mining and it was starting to fade.

So we wanted to get into something else and we get into the theater business and of course we had our own equipment, that's how we built these places.

We did it all ourselves.

- [Narrator] Their first drive-in theater was the Super 30 on Route 30 near Irwin.

They eventually built, owned, and operated seven drive-ins around here.

- Super 30, Blue Dell, Greater Pitt, South Hills Drive-in, the Bel-Aire.

What's the other one?

Rose Drive-in.

- [Narrator] On a nice night, you can come up to the Greater Pittsburgh Drive-in and things can be just like they used to be in the '50s and '60s, when it seemed that everyone went to drive-ins.

The Warrens call their company Warren Enterprises and they have some custom-made announcements that used to play at their drive-ins.

(regal music) They also had local commercials, something that's long gone from the drive-in scene.

And it's been a while too, since you could get three months of car insurance for $10.21.

- [Announcer] The show starts in five minutes.

Folks, for a rare treat and a real delicacy, it's genuine Italian pizza pie, baked right before your eyes.

- [Narrator] Drive-ins certainly were great places to see certain kinds of movies.

(woman screaming) - Scary nights with "Chainsaw Massacre," my favorite movie, it's done a lot of business.

In fact, I must.

- [Francis] It still does.

- I've probably played it more than anybody in this country.

- [Narrator] And of course, drive-ins were known as great places to make out.

- [Marty] A lot of people met up here and got married up here, you know, I mean met here and got married.

- They still call it the Passion Pit.

A lot of people come to the golf window and tell me this is where they were created.

(both laughing) - Say, do you suppose there's time?

- [Announcer] Sure, there's still time to visit our fine snack bar where we offer a wide variety of good things to eat and drink to top off your evening.

- [Narrator] The Warrens also got into some cross promotional strategies, too.

If you didn't get enough to eat at the snack bar, maybe you'd wanna stop at the diner.

The Blue Dell Drive-in also showed advertisements for the pool.

- [Announcer] The show starts in one minute.

- [Narrator] All these old ads and promotional films were collected and saved by Marty and Francis' son, Joe Warren, he grew up at these places.

- [Joe] I spent every summer here at the swimming pool and at the drive-ins at night.

- [Narrator] Joe took us back behind the Blue Dell Pool where the Warrens used to have yet another drive-in, called the Bel-Aire.

- And over here to my left is the projection booth area.

Over on my right is up on the hill is where the cars would park for the balcony area.

Before the trees grew in, obviously, it was all clear and there was just a guide rail up there and you pulled your car to the rail and you were able to watch the movie, just like in a theater that had a lobby and a balcony.

- [Narrator] Joe remembers when they closed the Bel-Aire.

Was he sad to see it go?

- When the drive-in closed, the kids turned this into our ball field.

Nothing was sad then, you know, when you're a kid, so.

- [Narrator] So, you know, he's right.

When you're a little kid, you're not inclined to be sad about stuff that's getting torn down.

Why worry when there are lots of cool toys around?

And if you're of a certain age, you probably have lots of bright and happy local TV to watch every day, too.

"Ricki and Copper" was a very popular kids show on WTAE channel four.

- Hi, how are you today?

Hi Mr. Boom Man, are you in a good mood, too?

- [Narrator] From the late '50s' to the late '60s, Ricki Wertz and her dog Copper did a daily show that helped kids celebrate their birthdays.

Ricki now works with us at Channel 13, but we took her back to her old studio at Channel four.

- How's Tom?

- Oh, honey, he's gonna be anxious to hear about all of you.

- [Narrator] These guys worked with her years ago.

It was a happy reunion.

- [Ricki] There's Copper with Danny Murtaugh.

She loved baseball.

- [Narrator] Ricki became a star here at TAE.

- See, they don't remember when I did the weather.

I started out as the weather girl and would sign on as the Sealy Time girl at 11:15 and I wore an negligee and I sang the weather.

It was fun, we had 15 minutes of weather.

- [Narrator] On "Ricki and Copper," it was a daily half hour of birthday kids live.

- And where do you live?

- Dawson Drive.

- That's over in, uh?

- Pittsburgh.

- They're born hams.

They have a lot more to them than people ever thought.

And these little ones would come on the air at four, five and six and they would tell jokes, sing songs, they would do everything.

You know what I do to ponytails?

What do I do to ponytails?

- Pull them.

- And do I have one to pull here, too?

- Yeah.

'Cause I watch you every morning.

- Do you?

Good girl!

That makes me happier than anything you could say.

Where do you live?

They were really, really cute.

And the only problem I had when we first started was we wanted really tight shots of the children's faces and they would put their head down and we didn't know what to do to get their head up when they sang.

And so I think it was Eddie Rolka who took the boom mic and put this doll on the end of it and we called him Mr. Boom Man.

So the kids would look up and say, "Hi Mr. Boom Man."

And he would go, "Ha ha ha ha."

And they'd shake this mic and they would sing.

♪ School days, school days ♪ ♪ Dear old Golden Rule days ♪ ♪ 'Reading, 'riting, 'rithmetic ♪ ♪ Taught to the tune of the hick'ry stick ♪ The number one joke was, "Why did the man throw the butter out the window?

He wanted to see a butterfly."

For some reason, children could grasp that joke.

Now, I laughed at that joke for over 10,000 times.

How about your joke?

- Why did the man throw his dinner out the window?

- I give up.

Why would a man throw his dinner out the window?

- He wanted to eat outside.

- He wanted to eat outside.

(laughing) - [Narrator] And Ricki always did live commercials at the mystery stump.

- Well, it was very difficult because this crew and everybody knew that it looked like a john because it was just there with the lid on the john and it was just awful trying to keep straight around this group.

And I'd open this up and they'd say, "What's in the mystery stump?"

And how we come the commercial, so this was a running gag.

- [Narrator] On my fifth birthday, I was on the "Ricki and Copper" show.

Like everybody else, I'd only seen it in black and white and I remember being amazed the set was in color.

Some people whose kids were on the show too, lent us these home movies.

They let you see how colorful and impressive the old set really was.

- You would write in to get on the show.

We usually had a nine to 10 month to two year waiting thing to get on the show.

So it was always those very organized mothers who got their kids on the show.

Say "Thank you" to your mother.

And then they would come, we would put them in the studio, we would do a warmup, our crew was wonderful, they loved all the kids.

- [Narrator] Oh, there were Hostess cupcakes for the birthday kids and Ricki usually introduced a Popeye cartoon to watch while everyone was eating.

After that, if there was time, Copper might perform.

(dog howling) - [Ricki] Oh, that's lovely.

All the kids loved Copper.

I worked for Copper for nine years.

She was wonderful.

Copper ran everything and she had free run of the station.

And then at the end they all went over the bridge and we would play the music and that was a filler because brothers and sisters and cousins and neighbors came down, this was a big family thing.

I mean, can you picture coming every day to work with little children who were having a birthday?

There is no way you can't smile, you just can't.

- [Narrator] There are many radio and TV programs that are gone that people remember fondly and wish were still around.

On KDKA radio for many years, there was a nighttime program called "Party Line."

- [Host] Hello, "Party Line."

On the party pretzel, that caribou wouldn't answer the pretzel.

- [Narrator] Ed and Wendy King hosted "Party Line" from 1951.

- [Wendy] Hello "Party Line."

- Until 1971, when Ed King died.

Wendy hesitated at first about doing a television interview, but then agreed.

She said most of her "Party Line" stuff was up in her attic.

- Now I should tell you that ordinarily nobody over the age of 13 is allowed up in this attic.

And to get there, you have to go through the vintage clothes closet.

But here we go.

Now this place is filled with ghosts and ghoulies and things that go bump in the night and I'll try to show you some of the stuff up here.

- [Narrator] Wendy has lots of boxes of old letters from listeners, notes that include short stories and personal anecdotes about certain topics from the show.

- Heroes, memories of your father, school experiences over here and meals.

Boy, is there a lot of good stuff in this one.

Your favorite meal.

Oh, that makes me hungry thinking about it.

- [Narrator] The radio show that inspired all this writing is not easy to explain.

"Party Line" was foremost a call-in show, but you never heard the callers.

- [Wendy] Hello, "Party Line."

- [Narrator] All you heard was Ed and Wendy answering the phone and they'd tell you what the callers question or answer was.

- [Wendy] No, it isn't a type of fish.

Thank you, though.

- [Ed] Thank you.

- It was a party.

It was not questions and answers, it was what you wanted to talk about.

- [Ed] "Speaking of favorite inventions," writes the lady from Elizabeth, Pennsylvania, "Let's not forget the safety pin."

- [Narrator] There were lots of subjects.

- Somebody wanted to know what that cream of tartar was for that she found on her spice shelf.

She didn't know what you did with cream of tartar.

Before it was over, we had 21 uses for cream of tartar.

- [Narrator] Every night, there was a special question called the pretzel.

- [Ed] Our party pretzel tonight.

As England is symbolized by the lion and France by the unicorn, the United States by the eagle, what creature symbolizes Canada?

That's our party pretzel.

- I think it's kind of funny that the original telephone number, how many people remember this?

It was Express 1 10 38.

People come up and wave and give me that number.

I've never played it.

Might recommend it.

- [Ed] And a wolf now, would not be the answer on our party pretzel.

And one more item.

- I think over the years, we probably had about 40 different pretzel prizes.

The best of all was the can opener, which survived to this day.

A lot of people, including myself, have worn off the lettering.

But it's the best darn little can opener that ever was built.

- [Ed] Hello, "Party Line."

Right on the pretzel.

What's your name?

- [Wendy] Hello, "Party Line."

No, a butterfly or a lion?

Neither one.

Actually I wasn't on at first.

I went in with Ed because he was working at night and I just sat in the studio and finally I started talking for some reason and it just lasted.

I kept talking for 21 years.

- [Ed] Well, Wendy, let's see if we can find some last minute winners on the party pretzel, hmm?

Hello, "Party Line."

Sure, guess away.

That's what we're looking for, a last minute winner.

- And after he was gone, I didn't want to broadcast without him.

So that was the end of "Party Line."

1971.

November of 1971.

You know what?

Sometimes when I'm lonely, now that I found out what loneliness is, I wish there were a "Party Line."

- [Ed] Well, we found a couple of last minute winners and I know lots more of you knew the beaver is the creature that is the national symbol of Canada, but just weren't able to get through to us tonight.

I hope you have better luck come tomorrow night, when we'll have another party and hope you'll be on hand because without you, there won't be us and we'd like to keep the whole party together.

(sweet old time music) - [Announcer] It's coming, March 1984.

USFL action comes to Pittsburgh.

The Maulers' historic first season at Three Rivers.

- [Narrator] The Maulers had great commercials and there were lots of them.

- [Announcer] The Maulers are here.

- [Narrator] It's just too bad the Maulers weren't here very long.

- [Announcer] Maulers.

- [Narrator] One of their marketing lines was "Be a part of history."

Nobody knew how quickly the team would become history.

Ed Bouchette, a sports writer for "The Post Gazette," began his Pittsburgh career in 1984, covering the Maulers.

He suggested we meet at the stadium.

He'd give us a tour of some Mauler landmarks.

- It's the visiting locker room now, used to be home of the Maulers.

State-of-the-art locker room, it was.

- [Narrator] The Maulers, owned by Edward DeBartolo Sr, were part of the United States Football League, the USFL.

It was big time professional football, but played in the spring instead of the fall.

- In here was the general manager's office, right behind that black door.

And there's the Maulers locker room.

Over here is where Mike Rozier, the most famous Mauler of them all, made about three point million, $3.1 million of Eddie DeBartolo's money.

Used to be right there, it'd be hard to get around him 'cause there'd be so many reporters jammed around him after a ballgame.

- [Narrator] The president of the Maulers was a former Steeler who was also then president of the Penguins, Paul Martha.

He still has a Maulers helmet and he remembers 1984.

- To me, the season has become sort of a blur.

I mean, it was a very interesting experience for me, but the games themselves were just a conglomeration of things that should not have happened, but did, and consequently we lost.

- [Narrator] On Sunday, March 11th, 1984, the Maulers played a memorable first home game here at Three Rivers.

- [Paul] We were the only team in the United States Football League to sell out their home opener.

And then of course we had the snowball thing with Cliff Stoudt that's memorable.

- [Narrator] Cliff Stoudt was the quarterback for the opposing team, the Birmingham Stallions, but he had been a Steeler in 1983.

- And the fans hated him.

So there was a nice snow that day and there was some snow in the stands and every time Cliff Stoudt got within throwing distance where the team got down on the 10 yard line, Cliff would get behind center and all of a sudden he'd look up and people would be going and they'd be throwing snowballs down.

They're clunking off his helmet and on his teammate.

It was some scene.

And Cliff completed about three of his 20 passes that day and they still beat the Maulers, as everyone did that year.

- [Narrator] Actually, the Maulers won three of their 18 games and they had fans.

Kevin Neri now works on the grounds crew at the stadium.

He remembers 1984.

- It was fun when Maulers were here.

People seemed to have a lot of fun.

Seemed to be the crowds that couldn't make it to the Steeler games, would get tickets for the Steeler games, all came to the Maulers game, so it was pretty loose.

- [Ed] Pittsburgh loved the Maulers, they loved them.

I can't really put my finger on why people look back with such fond nostalgic memories of the Maulers, but they're there.

- And it's a real tribute to the people in Pittsburgh.

This is, at least at that time in the early '80s, was a real football town, coming off the successes of the Steelers and the Maulers just kind of rode right along.

I mean, we were part of that ride.

- I remember coming to a game on Easter Sunday.

All it did, was poured down rain.

There's still people here having a good time, enjoying themselves, I'm sure, having a beer or two.

- [Narrator] The Maulers also allowed Pittsburgh to enjoy its first group of dancing cheerleaders.

- [Paul] They were a big hit.

They used to do shows all over the place and they were called the Flashdancers because "Flashdance," the movie had just come out and it was big.

- Flashdancers.

Okay, I remember them, I remember the insignia and they'd play on the scoreboard, the fella coming down with the sledgehammer on the anvil.

For one year, they seemed to have a lot of fun and it seemed to be pretty good time.

- Was a lot of fun.

We had a ball.

It didn't last long enough, but it was a lot of fun.

- They gave everyone on the ground crew a Maulers jacket.

I think they were silver and orange.

They were pretty loud.

- And like I saved this media guide, but it's pretty well worn.

I still have notes in it, scribbled and old phone numbers.

And I know there are helmets, but the helmets were expensive to buy.

They had an auction at the civic arena.

They auctioned off everything of the Maulers.

They even auctioned off those headphones the coaches wear on the sidelines.

- Probably one of the most significant things about the League was how it came to an end and the impact that Donald Trump had on the demise of the United States Football League.

- And Donald Trump was behind all this.

And he eventually forced the League to decide it was gonna play in the fall.

And the Maulers said, "We can't play in the fall, we got the Pittsburgh Steelers here."

And that's why really the Maulers folded and why eventually the whole League just collapsed under its own weight.

- And it was entertainment, it was football entertainment and it was pretty good stuff.

We had some pretty good football players.

I mean, it wasn't like minor league football, by any means.

It was the real thing.

(airplane engine sounding) - [Narrator] You know, Pittsburghers have always enjoyed checking out new kinds of entertainment, whether they be short-lived or long lasting.

In the 1920s, long before professional football became big time entertainment, people were showing up for air shows and balloon races and all kinds of events connected with the then-still amazing art of flying.

These films were shot in the late '20s at an air show at Rodgers Field in O'Hara Township.

Now part of the grounds at Fox Chapel High School, Rodgers Field was Pittsburgh's first official municipal airport.

It was named for an early Pittsburgh aviator named Calbraith Perry Rodgers, who was the first person to fly coast to coast across the USA.

It took 49 days in 1911, and he had only 15 serious crashes.

Rodgers Field had two runways and a refreshment stand.

It also had a ditch along its one edge that was somewhat infamous in its day because Amelia Earhart crashed into that ditch in September, 1928, when she was pausing in Pittsburgh overnight.

Back in the '20s, there were several small fields around town.

Rodgers Field was up here.

Mayorfield and Bridgeville was down here, where Great Southern Shopping Center is now.

And Bettis Field was over here in West Mifflin.

Elmer Best lives in West Mifflin, and he's been in aviation buff since he was a boy.

- Bettis Field is just right up over the hill there the way I'm looking, probably 800 feet.

At that time, there was none of these trees that have grown up and you could see the airplanes landing and taking off.

- [Narrator] And Elmer remembers when the first couple of young aviators landed nearby.

- The first planes that came come around here, came around in 1919 and they landed across from Bettis Airport.

- [Narrator] They were barnstormers, crazy young pilots who would take people up for a ride in a flying machine.

They stayed all summer.

- Their charges were $15 for 15 minutes of straight flight and $25 for loops and spins.

And my sister and her cousins, they were young women at the time, and through the course of the summer, they became acquainted with these aviators and had a date with them.

And they went out to Kennywood when these guys went to ride the rollercoaster, although they flew those planes under those hazardous conditions, but they wouldn't ride the rollercoaster.

- [Narrator] Those early pilots landed not far from the field, that in 1925, would become the Pittsburgh McKeesport Airport, which was renamed Bettis Field in 1926.

Charles Lindbergh landed at Bettis at least a couple of times, once in August, 1927, when lots of people came out to see the legend.

Elmer Best took some aviation classes and hung around the airport a lot.

That's him in this picture.

And he's on the right in this picture that also shows Wiley Post's airplane, the Winnie Mae, the first plane to circumnavigate the globe.

Elmer saw or met most of the great early aviators and says they were special people.

- They had to be people that took a chance.

There was no doubt about it, you couldn't be a patsy, let's put it that way, you had to be a real guy in my estimation.

- [Narrator] The old Bettis Field is now the site and the parking lot for the Westinghouse Atomic Power Lab, still called Bettis, which was the name of an Army Air Corps pilot who died in the '20s after his plane crashed.

The Airways is a tavern up near there on Lebanon Church Road, it's the red building on the right, and it's been there since the days of Bettis Field or Airport.

Bettis was a commercial airport where the first airlines began to offer regular service in the early '30s.

The importance of both Bettis and Rodgers Field was changed forever when the Allegheny County Airport opened in 1932.

It became the principal airport for Southwestern Pennsylvania.

It's still there and it's still an airport for corporate and private planes.

It's also the home of PIA, Pittsburgh Institute of Aeronautics.

And in the early '90s, these aviation technician students were working on the restoration of an old biplane named Miss Pittsburgh.

She was gone for a long time, owned by out-of-towners, but now she's back.

Eric Hoffman says they've done a lot of work on her.

- When the airplane first came in, it was stripped, pretty much, a lot of it didn't have any of the fabric on it and did a lot of repairs on the ribs and the spars on the internal structure of the wing.

- [Narrator] This plane is a Waco 9 model, built in 1927.

It has an old OX-5 engine and a distinguished history.

They've put a new skin on this plane, but the old one's still around and it tells part of the story.

- This is the fuselage covering that was on the airplane when we received it, showing the paint scheme of Pennsylvania Airlines.

- [Narrator] In the late '20s, this airplane flew Air Mail from Pittsburgh to Youngstown to Cleveland.

And that was significant because that early Air Mail business proved that private industry could use airplanes to make money.

Before 1925, all Air Mail had been flown on military planes.

Jim Taylor used to teach here at PIA.

He's worked in aviation all his life and he orchestrated the return of Miss Pittsburgh to Pittsburgh in the early '90s.

- Well, this is the beginning of commercial aviation in Pittsburgh, and we have nothing else to substitute for it.

It's been all over the country and finally came home and there's a lot of history behind it, a lot of famous pilots have flown this airplane.

- [Narrator] Jim's affection for this old plane is obvious.

- [Jim] Mail was put in on the seat there, strapped in with a seatbelt.

- [Narrator] Get another old aviation buff like Ben Venables in here, and they'll spend hours just looking at the thing.

- [Jim] A lot of times they hauled bricks.

- Yeah.

- And then raise a rate up of mail.

- [Narrator] This plane will never fly again, except in old movies like this.

It's been restored with the hopes that it will be displayed at the new airport or maybe in a museum, maybe in the old Greater Pittsburgh Airport if someone can figure out what we should do with that great building and it is a great building.

(metal clanking on metal) They've put a fence around it to protect it.

So we arranged for George Gammrod to come out and let us in and give us a tour.

George is Assistant Director of Maintenance at the new airport, but he worked here at the old airport, even before it opened.

- [George] The original design, if you looked at this from above, was like an aircraft.

The East Dock and the West Dock was your wings and the South Dock and rotunda was the body of the aircraft.

- [Narrator] It's kind of eerie and dead in the terminal now, but this place was a showcase when it first opened its doors in 1952.

It was the largest air terminal in the world then.

There was a huge celebration and people were impressed.

- [Announcer] Easily accessible from downtown is Pittsburgh's beautiful airport terminal.

Here in a setting of flowered gardens and splashing fountains, meet many of the major airlines that make Pittsburgh one of our most important terminals.

- People really enjoyed that in those days.

It was a, I guess, a fun way to spend a afternoon with your children, not cost you a lot of money and you could enjoy it.

- [Narrator] Captain Frank Petit met us at the old airport, too.

He works for USAir now, and he remembers flying into this airport the first day it was open.

- It was quite a thrill coming in here to this brand new shiny, big airport.

Of course, at that time, people were calling it a white elephant.

They said it would never be used completely because it was just too big.

And of course it was enlarged two or three times during the years and still ended up too small for the airlines.

- [Narrator] He still has his old log book.

- Of course it did say that I flew into Greater Pittsburgh for the first time, then here's one case where I did stay overnight at the hotel.

RON means remain overnight.

- [Narrator] This airport had a hotel and lots of other modern features, including a place to wave goodbye.

- This was the entrance way to the observation deck in the South Dock.

People could come down here and go out on the deck and look at the planes, see people boarding them.

You could lean over and you could even talk to the people, where they were going if you wanted to.

- [Narrator] Wally Bohl also works for USAir in customer service, and he worked here.

You could say he loves this place.

- [Wally] This is the airport here where I met my girlfriend, who's now my wife.

We used to spend a lot of time here walking up and down where the arcade shops were, where the old theater used to be.

I really had a great time here.

- [Narrator] Wally can show you some cool things around here.

- This is probably one of the features here that I like most about the airport, the first time I came through in '87.

I remember walking up and down and got down in the lobby where the compass was, I was fascinated by that and the way everything was in the marble.

So we started walking up the steps and first of all, I see this prop plane sitting here, and this definitely sums up the Greater Pittsburgh Airport.

Built in the early '50s back when the prop plane was king.

- [Narrator] The Horizon Room was up on the second floor.

- It was at one time a very nice nightclub, if you wanna call it that.

They used to bring acts in.

One time, they even put a ice skating rink down on top of the dance floor and had ice skaters there.

- [Narrator] Well, up in the Horizon Room, there were some photos hanging on the wall for a while and Ralph Veerling, a pilot for USAir, brought them out to show us.

- [Ralph] I heard that they were at the auction and I went to try to get a couple of 'em and I ended up with all of them for my collection.

- [Narrator] They're photos from a bygone era when passengers and crew actually walked out to the planes across the tarmac or the ramp or what they sometimes called the loading apron.

Another of those old Horizon Room photos shows the old fountain.

- That's the original, with the different pools they had out in front.

Then later, it went just to the fountain itself.

And these pools were made into short term parking and rental car pickup and so forth.

- [Narrator] There were lots of little shops in this airport, too.

- This area here was a drug store.

It had a sit-down counter in there for fountain and booths and that, and they sold drugs.

This area here was a Horne's department store.

- [Narrator] Susan Morley grew up here and remembers a lot about her family's businesses.

- My earliest memories are of running up and down the halls and going from store to store.

My family had two businesses here.

We had a flower and gift shop, here at this end of the airport and at the other end we had the famous airport theater.

- [Narrator] A movie theater inside the airport was pretty unusual.

- And you could go in there and stay all day if you wanted to.

You could also come in and out.

Many passengers would like to go and check on their flight and then go back in.

As long as you had your ticket, you could do that.

- You get your airport with the rental cars, a movie theater, hotel, shops, so there might as well be a bank.

And we were very fortunate, we had a bank here, PNC Bank, which was here for years.

Merchants would drop their money in there or if you wanted to go inside.

Something we were never privileged to see until they closed the place and that was the the vault.

- [Narrator] Cool.

And you know what?

Susan remembers the day The Beatles arrived.

- And so all of the people were out there on the runway waiting for The Beatles to come.

And most of the people were teenage girls.

And they raised such a ruckus, I guess you would say, with their screaming, that the toys and some of the items that we had along the back wall of our store, from the vibrations were falling off.

- [George] Okay, this takes you up to the control tower, the old control tower.

- [Narrator] We didn't wanna leave without seeing the airport from up top.

- [George] Get a good view of the new terminal from here.

- [Narrator] Planes still fly low over here on their way to the new Pittsburgh airport that's bigger, but not necessarily greater than this one.

You can also get a good view up here of some of the creatures who walk those loading aprons these days.

- And when I see this, it to me is like looking at a 1955 postcard that's been untouched with exception of maybe the jet bridge there.

Everything's just intact probably as it was during the dedication week of 1952.

And that's, to me, what the airport's about.

- There must be something somewhere that someone could use it for because I don't think we will see a building built again with all the marble and that that is in this building.

- I was on the steering committee of a group working to turn this terminal into a museum.

Actually, the first museum devoted to commercial and private aviation, rather than military.

I still would like to see that happen.

- And I really hope that someone who has an interest in the building itself and the beauty and the way it's built, and who wants to preserve that will come in and do that.

I hope they don't change it too much.

That's what I'd like to see.

Someone who cares about the building, come and take it over.

- [Narrator] People do care about these things.

Great old stuff that's gone for one reason or another.

(large explosion sounding) So let's imagine we can hop an incline on our way to Rainbow Gardens, we'll stop at the drive-in that night, grab a late night Reuben at the Gazebo.

And you know what?

We'll listen to "Party Line" as we catch that last flight home.

- [Wendy] Hello?

"Party Line."

(bright doo-wop music)