Events: Heinz History Center Book Fair, Dec. 5

This Saturday, Dec. 5, the Senator John Heinz History Center will hold its Annual History Center Holiday Book Fair. From 10:00AM until 2:00PM local authors from points throughout the region will all be at the History Center for one big book signing party. Again this year they’ll have free coffee & hot chocolate, and live music.

This is the seventh year the History Center has held the Book Fair. It will be my third time there as one of the authors signing books. In my first year, 2004, my daughter attended with me and met Dan Rooney. (I told her she could lord it over the boys in her elementary school class about shaking hands the owner of the Steelers, but she declined to follow up on that.) This year local celebrity authors will include Art Rooney, Jr., Rory McHugh, Jennifer Antkowiak, Dave Crawley, Jim O'Brien, and Eleanor Schano. There will also be some names that fans of local history might know: Brian Butko, Greg Spalding, Arthur Fox, Lisa Spahr, Quentin Skrabec, Autumn Redcross, and Michael Muchnock.

There is no registration to get into the Book Fair, and no fee. Just walk in and meet and talk with over 60 local authors. Check out the History Center’s web page on the event at http://www.heinzhistorycenter.org/events.aspx?EventID=9. I hope to see you there!

Whiskey Rebel Central's Inaugural Post

Welcome to Whiskey Rebel Central! The purpose of this blog is to serve local historical societies, genealogical societies, and related historical organizations in Southwestern Pennsylvania as a clearinghouse for your information. I will post articles and thoughts of my own, but what I really started this blog for is to provide you with an additional outlet for information about your historical organization. Send your

• event announcements,
• reports on events attended,
• society profiles,
• member profiles and memorials,
• newsletter articles from your historical society's newsletter,
• original articles on your community's history,
• book publishing announcements for yourself , members, acquaintances,

and really, anything about your local history organization, or the history of your area or community, that you want to. Email them to thethroughway@gmail.com and I'll post them on this blog.

Has there been some new discovery about the history of your community? For example, a house was found to be a part of the Underground Railroad? Or a cache of historical records was found in an old business? Did someone recently donate artifacts or archives to your society? Did your historical society recently receive a grant? Do did you read a book you'd like to tell everyone about? Did you read a newspaper or other article on local history that you want to share the link to?

It is my hope for this blog that historical societies and related organizations use it as one more venue to get their information out to the public. And that others use it as a one-stop-shop to find out what's going on in local history organizations in Southwestern Pennsylvania.