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Mount Union borough

The Harbison-Walker Nine and the 1919 County Series

On August 30, 1919, the Harrisburg Telegraph's Mount Union column announced that Labor Day would be celebrated there as a holiday for the first time in years, with the fire company in charge. The banner feature was to be a county championship baseball game between the town's Harbison-Walker Brick Company team and Huntingdon, in a series of nine games.

A report dated August 29 had Lewistown, of the Juniata-Mifflin county league, beating Mount Union 4 to 3 in a twilight game, with one man out when the winning run scored.

The column reported afterward that Labor Day was celebrated in good style. The big features were two ball games, Mount Union 7, Orbisonia 0, and Mount Union 5, Huntingdon 2, along with a wrestling match, foot racing, horse racing, auto races, a band concert and a comic parade.

A separate report of the Huntingdon game said Harbison-Walker had captured the sixth game of the series, which made the standing 4 to 2 in Mount Union's favor. It said the feature was Mount Union's heavy hitting, 10 hits off Horton, Huntingdon's pitcher, and its box score credits the Mount Union pitcher, Stair, with 13 strikeouts.

On October 1 the Harbison-Walker team beat Robertsdale 6 to 1 before a large crowd. The Telegraph's report counted 18 wins and four defeats for the season and said the team had won the county championship.

Checked against the record. The dates, scores and team names come from five reports in the Harrisburg Telegraph, August to October 1919. That is one newspaper. We did not find the Huntingdon papers' accounts of these games in the archives we could search. The report of the Huntingdon game calls the Labor Day contest the sixth in the series, and its standing of 4 to 2 fits six games played, so the story follows that report. The Lewistown report names Mount Union, not Harbison-Walker. We treat it as the same team because several names in its box score also appear in the Labor Day box score. The Telegraph's column prints the Labor Day shutout opponent as Orlusonia, which we read as a misprint for Orbisonia. The season record and the county championship rest on the Telegraph's October report. Still open: a 1994 National Register nomination for the Mount Union Historic District also describes the ballfield and the team. Its names and dates for the field do not agree with each other, and it mentions 1919 games against professional teams that we could not confirm, so this story leaves them out. A Mount Union or Huntingdon paper from 1919 or 1920 would settle the open points.

Sources

  1. Harrisburg Telegraph, August 30, 1919, p. 12: Mount Union column on the Labor Day plans
  2. Harrisburg Telegraph, September 2, 1919, p. 14: Mount Union Winner in Championship Contests
  3. Harrisburg Telegraph, September 6, 1919, p. 2: Mount Union column on the Labor Day events
  4. Harrisburg Telegraph, August 29, 1919, p. 21: Lewistown Wins Game From Mt. Union Champs
  5. Harrisburg Telegraph, October 2, 1919, p. 15: Mount Union Team Is Winner in County Series
  6. National Register nomination, Mount Union Historic District, 1994, section 7, p. 11: Victoria Park and the team

Checked 2026-11-01 · Primary sources and the Pennsylvania Newspaper Archive

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Photographs from Mount Union borough

Shirley Street at Jefferson Street, downtown Mount Union, February 1990Shirley Street at Jefferson Street, downtown Mount Union, February 1990Jet Lowe, , 1990. Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons · Public domain
A swimming pool created by a CCC dam, captioned Huntingdon, Pennsylvania, July 1941, Farm Security Administration photograph.A swimming pool created by a CCC dam, captioned Huntingdon, Pennsylvania, July 1941, Farm Security Administration photograph.Edwin Rosskam, photographer. Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division, FSA/OWI Collection, LC-USF33-005210-M4 (LC-DIG-fsa-8a15977) · Public domain
The corner of Shirley and Jefferson streets in Mount Union, a recent photograph.The corner of Shirley and Jefferson streets in Mount Union, a recent photograph.Wikimedia Commons (CC0) · CC0
East Broad Top Railroad & Coal Company, Roundhouse, State Route 994, West of U.S. Route 522, Rockhill FurnaceEast Broad Top Railroad & Coal Company, Roundhouse, State Route 994, West of U.S. Route 522, Rockhill FurnaceLibrary of Congress · pa3371
Mount Union in T. M. Fowler's bird's-eye view, 1906, the year after the quarantine.Mount Union in T. M. Fowler's bird's-eye view, 1906, the year after the quarantine.Library of Congress Panoramic Maps (T. M. Fowler, 1906) · Public domain
Peduzzi's Soda and LunchPeduzzi's Soda and LunchWikimedia Commons (Smallbones, CC0) · c02

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