Highland Park

The club's quick community acceptance and growth came largely from the success of its boys' midget, junior and pony league baseball teams. As Franklin B. "Herky" Allison remembers, We had always played ball at the caddy grounds. It was great because no parents came around. Teenagers were more or less left on our own. There was no such thing as little league in those days. And when we felt like taking a break, we just sat down.

Thus, when the Highland Park Community Club was formed in late 1945, Highland Park was a mature community of the prosperous east end. Driving around the neighborhood, one would see most of the homes and commercial buildings seen today. There were lots of families and children. With the end of the war, people stopped working Saturdays and found themselves with leisure time.

Highland Park has played a role in the development of the nation since the first settler arrived in 1778. Early nineteenth century farms and estates were divided into lots for suburban development following the civil war. Pittsburgh boomed as a center of industry, and Highland Park filled with elegant homes of prosperous merchants, business owners, and factory managers.

In December 1945, the baby boom was a few months pregnant and soldiers began arriving home in the euphoria of World War 11's conclusion. America's great optimism and community spirit that developed during the war was tempered with memories and fears of a return to the depression. On December 10, 1945, fifteen families -- most living within two blocks of the intersection of Heberton Street and Wellesley Road -- formed the Highland Park Community Club in order to provide sports and recreation for their children.

In 1995 Mike Staresinic & Clarke Thomas wrote a history of the Highland Park Community Club documenting the period between the beginning of the club in 1945. The document was written with the help of Knox Motheral, Judi Leract, Mrs. James P. Ifft Jr, Carol Thompson, Jerome C. Shaub, Clarke Thomas, Jean Shafer, Jeanne and Bill Mischler, Barbara Howe, Rochelle Sufrin, Norma Lipscomb, Dr. Joe Rogers Friday, Franklin B. Allison, Peter Parkin, and written records. Clarke provided an addendum with additional points of information through the year 1996.

This simple timeline highlights some of the significant events in Highland Park history.

Aurand, Martin, The progressive architecture of Frederick G. Scheibler, Jr., Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1994. Collins, John F. S., Stringtown on the Pike: Tales and History of East Liberty and the East Liberty Valley of Pennsylvania, Ann Arbor (MI): Edward Brothers, 1966. Floyd, Margaret H., Architecture after Richardson: Regionalism before Modernism – Longfellow, Alden, and Harlow in Boston and Pittsburgh, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1994. G. M. Hopkins Co., Atlas of the cities of Pittsburgh, Allegheny, and adjoining boroughs, 1872.

The coming of World War II brought an end to building construction in the Highland Park district. After the war, when construction began again, the paucity of building lots constrained the amount of building that could occur in the district. Occasionally an older house or two were demolished to provide room for new buildings, but construction usually took place on the few empty lots scattered across the district and on a small number of large estates that were sold and subdivided during this period. Examples of single-family houses built after the war can be found at 826 N.