Glen Hazel –– Middle Fork
Immigrants were sent by the Belgian government to establish
a colony of glass workers that originally settled in the area now known as Glen
Hazel. This settlement was first
given the name of “New Flanders”. Because of a lack of suitable funding from
the Belgian government, the glass blowing operations here were not successful
and the workers later found work elsewhere at the lumber mills in Elk County.
It wasn’t until 1888 that Ben F. Hazleton began
construction of a lumber mill at the confluence of Crooked Creek and the East
Branch near the St. Marys / Olean Turnpike. It was at this location that Thomas
Kane, a few years earlier, had erected a small sawmill.
Hazleton soon renamed the town “Glen Hazel”. Soon workers began to settle in the village. By 1891, Hazleton hired a surveyor by the name of J. L. Brown to layout the village building lots and streets. People started coming to the area building stores and homes for their families. In July of 1891, the Post Office was moved from Ketner to Glen Hazel. The St. Marys / Olean Turnpike was designated as the main thoroughfare thru the town. By 1892, Glen Hazel was on of the largest settlements in northeast Elk County. There were several stores, offices, freight stations, restaurants, and jewelry stores.
Prior to World War II, the area even had a privately owned
airstrip located just north of Middle Fork.
The village boasted of a well-tuned brass band and had
it’s own baseball team, each competing with other nearby towns.
A typical
family in Glen Hazel
The Reid Hotel in Glen Hazel
Above is a view of Hazleton’s Dam across the East Branch at Glen Hazel. Since water was required to operate his steam-powered mill, he rebuilt a crude log dam across the East Branch at the same location of as the former Kane sawmill dam.
A View of
Hazleton’s log pond in Glen Hazel
The first two-room schoolhouse was erected in
1892 near today’s East Branch Bridge. It
was soon outgrown and a new two-story, four room schoolhouse was built along
what is now the Bendigo Road to Johnsonburg.
About 200 students attend school here up to the eighth grade.
This building was later destroyed by fire in February of 1913.
The Jones Township School Board erected another school at the former
location of the Bridge School. This
would be a single-story four-room school building.
Just a few years later, in January 1916, fire also consumed the Wilcox
School. The Township school
districts then re-build a larger school in Wilcox.
The kids from Glen Hazel were then transported to the new Wilcox school
to attend class. The Bridge School
in Glen Hazel was then sold to a group from St. Marys who established the
Riverside Lodge. Now, it is used as
a private residence.
Two oxen pull a wagon up to the Post Office in Glen Hazel
(Date
Not Known)
Even today, the area is experiencing gas exploration of the Trenton / Black River natural gas reserves. Several gas well have been recently drilled near Glen Hazel as much as 2-miles deep to reach these gas reserves.
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Above left is the second pump house and oil tanks (center photo), they were torn down in 1978. They were located on the left side of Kilgus Road, just below the dam. The main pump house is shown on the right. Many of these old wells have just recently been plugged. However, even today the smell of natural gas escaping from these old wells can be detected.
Soon the area would see development of other
timbering operations, including several wood chemical factories.
These chemical factories would convert logs into charcoal, methanol (wood
alcohol), and acetate of lime or acetic acid. They utilized the smaller
diameter hardwood that lumber mills had no use for.
The basic process was to heat, in the absence
of oxygen, the wood to a very high temperature that would drive off its
chemicals, via smoke, and turn the remaining wood to charcoal. The smoke
would be cooled in a vessel called a “retort” or still.
The chemicals were treated so as to produce methanol and acetate of lime.
The charcoal was cooled, and most of it subsequently sold to iron producers.
Charcoal was important because it contained no sulphur, as did coal.
Sulphur is detrimental to nickel and chromium so that high grade steels and
stainless steel had to be smelted by charcoal. Click
here to learn more about the wood chemical process.
The Clawson Chemical Company built a sawmill as well as a chemical plant near Middle Fork and had their offices in Glen Hazel. The plant was located just north of Glen Hazel at the mouth of Middle Fork. This was the only facility to utilize the new “jumbo retorts” patented by the Quinn’s. Quinn introduced his jumbo retorts into the Lackawanna Chemical Company plant at Straight, a few miles north of Glen Hazel.
View of the Clawson Chemical Company at Middle Fork
Clawson's log yard at Middle Fork
Above, the Clawson Chemical Company at Middle Fork.