Indians to aviation form Rock's history
Slippery Rock is the county's largest borough north of Butler, home of a venerated university, and arguably the most comically named town in the tri-state area.
Sue Barkley of the Slippery Rock Heritage Association said the borough's history stretches back to 1790, when brothers Zebulon and Nathaniel Cooper arrived in what is now the bustling borough from Washington County.
The brothers only stayed a few years, but returned permanently in 1800 with their uncle, Stephen Cooper, and Zebulon's wife.
“Stephen took out a claim on a parcel of land that later became part of Slippery Rock,” Barkley said.
At one point, the family noticed a squatter building a cabin on the land.
“That night, Stephen, Nathaniel, Zebulon and his wife worked all night to build a house so he could keep that claim,” Barkley said.
The family later built a larger log house, which was the first permanent home in the new borough of Centreville.
Barkley said the story goes that the hamlet was so named because it was halfway between Butler and Mercer, and halfway between Pittsburgh and Erie.
The Cooper home, which was also an inn and tavern, was in an area unofficially known as Ginger Hill, thanks to Stephen Cooper's bartending methods.
“He tended to water down the whiskey and add ginger for taste,” Barkley said.
Cooper's tavern was just a few doors away from the location of the current Ginger Hill Tavern on Centreville Pike.
The borough of Centreville was incorporated in 1841, and continued to grow and thrive as millwrights, foundry and furnace workers, moulders, merchants, coopers and blacksmiths supported the economy.
In 1900, Centreville's name was changed to match that of the Slippery Rock Creek, which snakes through the landscape south of the borough.
Barkley said legend has it that a post office at Etna Springs about two miles from Centreville was the Slippery Rock Post Office at that time due to its location along the creek.
“Centreville wanted the post office, so they loaded it into a wheel barrow and brought it to Centreville,” Barkley said. “Apparently it wasn't very big.”
Centreville officials decided at that time to change the name of the borough to Slippery Rock.
Thankfully for generations of elementary students in the area, the creek did not retain its Native American name, Wes-cha-cha-chapohka.The name translates in English to “Slippery Rock,” and was so named by Native Americans because their moccasins would cause them to slip on a particular flat rock.Barkley explained that Gen. Braddock's troops chased the natives, who they said were marauding local settlements, through the creek.The soldiers' boots allowed them to remain upright on the creek's slick rock, but the Native Americans' moccasins could not.A state geological publication claims to have located the large, flat rock near Wurtemberg in Mercer County.The state Department of Conservation and Natural Resources claims the sandstone rock for which the creek, borough, township and university are named is in the creek under the Armstrong Bridge, which is in the McConnells Mill State Park property.Barkley said in the 1950s, an announcer at a college in Texas was so enchanted by the name that he announced the college's football scores each week.“Most people there thought it was a hoax,” Barkley said.Comedian Tim Allen wore Slippery Rock University sweatshirts on his sitcoms “Home Improvement” and “Last Man Standing.”“If any of us travel anywhere and happen to wear a Slippery Rock shirt, graduates will ask us if Bob's Subs is still in town,” Barkley said of her own experience with the town's unusual name. “And it is. Bob's Subs is still a favorite.”
Perhaps Slippery Rock's most impressive claim to fame is its status as home to the only four-year university in Butler County.Barkley said the school, which saw an undergraduate enrollment of 7,415 students in the fall of 2020, had its humble beginnings in 1889.“The townspeople got together and worked together to build a place of higher education for their children,” she said.Young people held fundraising events and gathered building materials, while women made drapes, rugs and bedding for what would initially become Slippery Rock Normal School, Barkley said.The school opened that year, 1889, in the building now known as Old Main.Barkley said in June 1927, the school's name was changed to Slippery Rock State Teacher's College and in June 1960, Slippery Rock State College.The growing school became Slippery Rock University of Pennsylvania in 1983, Barkley said.She said the school's first president, James E. Morrow, was the father of Dwight Morrow, ambassador to Mexico under President Calvin Coolidge, and the grandfather of Ann Morrow Lindbergh, the wife of American icon Charles Lindbergh, who was the first pilot to fly nonstop from New York City to Paris.
Area residents or Slippery Rock graduates of a certain age, Barkley said, will recall the old Roxy Theatre, which entertained audiences at its Main Street location from the Great Depression to the disco era.Before becoming a movie theater, the building was the John Welsh and Son Livery Stable, circa 1880.The family later operated a fleet of buses from the location, which eventually became a repair garage.“Edgar Shaffer purchased the building and converted it into the Roxy Theater, which opened on April 10, 1939,” Barkley said. “The first movie shown was 'My Lucky Star.'”Upon Shaffer's retirement, the Cinemet Corporation bought the theater, she said.“The final movie, 'Saturday Night Fever,' was shown on April 26, 1978,” Barkley said. “The next morning the building was destroyed by fire.”The empty lot where the theater once stood is now owned by the borough and unofficially known as “Roxy Park,” she said.
Barkley said the Slippery Rock Heritage Association and Slippery Rock in Bloom partnered in 2016 to place historical placards on some of the older buildings in the borough.The heritage association's website, srheritage.org, offers additional historical information, particularly on its “Walk Around the Rock” page.She hopes to institute a museum at some point to preserve Slippery Rock's rich history, and said new members are welcome to join the Slippery Rock Heritage Association.
