Mirror photo by Matt Churella / Portage Area Historical Society President Irene Huschak (standing) educates a group of second grade students about the town’s historical significance during a tour of several landmarks Tuesday.

PORTAGE — Second grade students at the Portage Area Elementary School learned about their town and the history behind it Tuesday during a guided bus tour with Irene Huschak, president of the Portage Area Historical Society.

During the hourlong trip, the students visited several points of interest throughout the town, including the former locations of a Coca Cola bottling plant and Moose Field, where the Pittsburgh Steelers once played football against the Bulldogs, Portage’s semi-professional football team.

First, they drove past Maple Winds Healthcare and Rehabilitation Center, which used to be a small airport in Portage, according to Huschak. Although planes landed there, it was unsafe for daily airmail pickups, she said, noting a mail bag was strung between two 16-foot poles in the field above the center.

Huschak said the United States Postal Service’s plane would drop a hook and pick up the mail without ever touching the ground.

“Back then they didn’t have televisions, so it was a big thing to watch this and people would come in from all over,” Huschak told the students.

While the bus driver headed to the next stop on Farren Street — one of only two areas in the town where the roads are not paved with asphalt and concrete — Huschak drew the students’ attention to the Patton Paver bricks they were riding over.

“Patton had a special kind of clay that made the strongest bricks in the world,” Huschak said, noting every street in Portage was made of bricks in 1912. “These bricks are over 100 years old and we’re still using them.”

The corner of Caldwell Avenue and Main Street is now home to a small parking lot full of vehicles across from Portage Chevrolet Buick. But, at one point in time, that area was Portage’s largest three-story hotel, Huschak said, adding the first floor had shops, the second floor had a restaurant and the third floor had rooms that were regularly occupied by coal miners and circus entertainers for only a couple dollars a night.

On Oct. 17, 1929, a runaway coal car going 70 miles per hour jumped the rail tracks and crashed into the building and killed two people who were eating in the restaurant at the time, she said. The hotel was badly damaged, but it was repaired and used for decades until 2012 when it burned to the ground.

As the bus drove past 115 Main St., the modern-day location of Dial Beer Co., Huschak showed students where the foundation of a former Coca Cola bottling plant remains.

When they go on another field trip in three years as fifth graders, they’ll tour the Portage Station Museum where a Coca Cola bottle produced in Portage is on display, Huschak told the students.

Huschak said Portage has a population of over 2,000 people. But, at one time, the town had “a really, really booming community” with a population more than six times larger, she said.

While on the tour, the students also visited the former site of Moose Field, 3670 Portage St.

In 1936, the Pittsburgh Steelers — then known as the Pittsburgh Pirates — came to Portage and played a football game against the Portage Bulldogs at the field.

The Steelers won, but the Bulldogs managed to score two touchdowns against the professional team, Huschak said, noting the final score was 35-14.

She said the Bulldogs were “so rough and tough” that they were undefeated for their first eight years as a team.

“These were coal miners and these were farmers, and they played against big professional players,” Huschak said.

About 65 students experienced the tour between two separate trips, according to Portage Area teacher Sara Erzal, who, while on the first tour with her students, said she “can’t get over” the fact that Portage used to have over 12,000 people living in the town.

At the conclusion of the tour, the students were given a small booklet with location addresses and questions about the sites they visited so they could revisit the historical landmarks with their friends and family. If they answer five of the 10 questions correctly, they’ll win a train whistle.

Second grader Taedyn Randall said he enjoyed the tour and is excited to share what he has learned about Portage with his parents when they visit the local points of interest and answer the questions together.

When asked what he enjoyed about the trip, Randall said, “I learned that there’s a Coca Cola plant.”

Zayne Barzdo, another student on the tour, said he was fascinated by a story Huschak told while the bus was on Route 164.

On the morning of July 30, 1904, Patrick Campbell and Charles Hayes were delivering a $3,000 payroll to the Puritan Coal Co. when they were ambushed by three robbers along the route, Huschak said.

Hayes was killed and Campbell, who pretended to be dead, was severely wounded in the ambush. In today’s economy, the robbers were able to get away with about $107,000, Huschak said.

She said a posse of 3,000 men formed in Portage to search for the robbers. Although local hardware stores gave guns to anyone who needed one, the robbers were never caught locally, Huschak said. The robbers were eventually found — in Italy — and were brought to trial.

Huschak said the historical society’s goal for these tours is to preserve and promote the town’s history.

“This is just a wonderful trip,” Erzal said. “A lot of the kids have younger parents that don’t even quite know everything about their town, so it’s a great experience for them to learn about it, take it home and share with family.”

Mirror Staff Writer Matt Churella is at 814-946-7520.