FIRST UNION HIGH WRESTLING TEAM — The first Union High School Wrestling team was founded in 1949. The inaugural team included, from left, front, R. Wagner, Walt Wozniak, John Murin, Manager George McElhaney, Bob Darras, Don Nunn and R. Rollage, second row, T. Sukolowski, A. Hoba, R. Mancinelli, Chaz Zilich, Ernie Chapman and Tom King, and, back, “Beanie” Wysocki, Dean Davis, Frank Kowalski, Coach Nick Mervosh, “Dutch” Pulver, “Gildo” Mancinelli and Ed Maltony. -- Contributed

BURGETTSTOWN — The Fort Vance Historical Society will welcome sports historian Lynn Hill at 1 p.m. Saturday as he gives a presentation on “Cornerstones of Burgettstown Sports History,” at the Burgettstown Community Library located at 2 Kerr St.

Hill is the Pennsylvania Sports Hall of Fame Washington/Greene County Chapter Satellite Branch sports memorabilia coordinator and the Satellite Committee chair. He also was inducted into the hall of fame himself in 2005 for his time as a gymnastics coach at Beaver Falls High School. He has long been fascinated by the history of sports in the Burgettstown area, beginning with the original Burgettstown High School in 1913 which later became Union High School in 1917, then Burgettstown High School once again following the destruction of Union High School by fire in the mid-1960s.

Hill spoke about the importance of preserving local sports history, encouraging those who have memorabilia, scrapbooks or other types of records to consider donating them to the satellite, which is located at the library, where the lecture will take place.

“It’s very important to have it documented,” he said. “We have several items on display here at the satellite branch. If we don’t pass this on to future generations, it will be lost. If they donate it, it will be preserved as part of the hall of fame collection. I understand if people are reluctant to part with things — we were, too, but I think it makes it easier because it will all stay here in Burgettstown.”

Hill said he would look at four “cornerstones” he felt were influential in early Burgettstown sports history. They include the 1920 Union High School football team, which was captained by his uncle, Edwin “Dutch” Hill; the 1949 wrestling team, including coach Nick Mervosh and brothers Ed and Ron Maltony; early photographer Peter Biny; and long-time sportswriter James T. Dallara.

FIRST UNION HIGH CHAMPIONSHIP FOOTBALL — This photo, likely taken in 1920 or 1921, was of the first championship football team at Union High School by area photographer Peter Biny, who gifted it to the family of team Captain Edwin “Dutch” Hill. Biny took several photographs of early sporting events in the borough. -- Contributed

Hill spoke about the first successful football team of 1920-1921, which launched football in the borough. The team earned a 1920 championship, having much success immediately.

The team won several championships and played both high schools and colleges throughout the Tri-State area, once even being crowned the West Virginia Panhandle champions, after the Hancock and Brooke counties champions ended the championship game in a tie – Burgettstown had beaten both teams. The team also set the record for most points scored – 106 points over Steubenville Business College. Those football teams were captained by Edwin “Dutch” Hill, who went on to a successful college career at New York University and was to be signed by the New York Giants before being killed in an off-campus accident. He was inducted into the hall of fame in 2003.

“A lot of people don’t know that Burgettstown has a connection to Knute Rockney and Pop Warner, but it does,” Hill said. “That’s one of the stories I’ll be telling.”

Hill also will explore the founding of wrestling at the high school, beginning with the first team in 1949 by Nick Mervosh, who was a student and football player at the school in the late 1920s and later became a basketball, wrestling and football coach. The wrestling team also saw success right away with the Maltony brothers. Ed Maltony was the first WPIAL wrestling champion the school had in 1950. He was soon followed by his younger brother, Ron, who was the school’s first state wrestling champion in 1956 — and once pinned an opponent in a total of 33 seconds. Hill noted that Ed Maltony donated several items to the hall of fame before he died in 2013.

“He donated it right before he died,” Hill said. “I asked him several times, and he wasn’t very interested, but then Ron asked him.”

SPORTS STANDOUT — Ron Maltony was a football and wrestling standout at Union High School, continuing on to play football at Purdue University. -- Contributed

Hill also will examine the career of long-time sportswriter James T. Dallara, who started out writing for the Union High School paper in 1949, moving to the Burgettstown Enterprise after his 1953 graduation.

Beginning in 1917, the Burgettstown Enterprise turned over one page a week to Union High School, calling it “the blue and white,” for the purpose of encouraging interest in high school sports. Most of the early school newspapers are lost, but many issues of the “Blue and White” have been preserved by Hill’s family, and Dallara’s earliest work can be found in these pages.

“I was an early devotee of Jim Dallara,” Hill said. “I would read everything he wrote.”

Dallara would continue to cover Burgettstown sports for several decades — much of Burgettstown’s sports history was shaped by Dallara’s pen — in addition to providing play-by-play for both local football and wrestling.

“He was the very best wrestling announcer I’ve ever heard,” Hill said.

INVOLVED IN MANY SPORTS — Nick Mervosh was involved in several sports at Union High School in the 1920s, 1930s, 1940s and 1950s. He was a member of the first Western Pennsylvania Interscholastic Athletic League championship football team in 1929, becoming an assistant coach of the 1941 team, which won the WPIAL championship, then founding the school’s wrestling program in 1949, coaching champions Ed and Ron Maltony. -- Contributed

Hill also will speak about Peter Biny, an early photographer who arrived in the borough sometime between 1905 and 1910, after immigrating from Italy as a young man in 1895 and riding a bicycle from New York to Pittsburgh, where he found work in the foundries before studying photography. Biny had a photography studio on Railroad Street, then Main Street. Biny’s photos of sporting events are some of the earliest taken in the borough.

“It’s amazing that he was able to get action shots with the equipment they had then,” Hill said.

Biny was a friend of Hill’s family, and several photos feature the 1920-1921 football team. They were preserved because Biny gave copies to Hill’s grandmother.

Admission is free and refreshments will be served.

For information, call (724) 5441 or e-mail vraninin@aol.com.