[PRCo] Redd's Beach and Westside Transit

[Rich Rockwell]

Does anybody on this list know anything about the history of Redd's Beach
(now Pine Cove Swim Club) on Rt 481 (Charleroi area) near exit 35 on I-70?
 

I was contacted by Judy Florian who is compiling information about the
history of Washington County
[http://freepages.misc.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~florian/

] and is looking for information about the owner prior to Redd.

 

She contacted me because of the reminiscence of Tom Phillips I have on my
web site [http://eldorapark.com/Charleroi_Memories_PTM_%204-20-02.htm] in
which Tom said (in reference to the Berryman Building in Charleroi that
housed Montgomery Wards from the 30's to the 60's) "John Berryman, the
owner, was not only one of the principal stockholders of Westside Transit
and Webster, Monessen, Belle Vernon, and Fayette City Railway Company but
also the builder of Berryman's Beach, a traffic generator, located on the
trolley line about 3 miles southwest of Charleroi. The park was sold after
Mr. Berryman's death in the mid-1930's and renamed Redd's Beach. Again
changing hands and now named Pine Cove Beach Club."

 

Florian's research on Redd's Beach has a Sam Nelson building the pool called
Nelson's Bathing Beach...later just Nelson's Beach.  He sold to Sam Redd
about 1935, and she finds no mention of Berryman owning the site.  Articles
from the pool's opening in 1927 point out easy access by auto, street car,
or omnibus.

 

If anybody has any information about this, let me know, and I'll pass it on
to her.

 

Rich Rockwell