INTHE KNOW
DID YOU KNOW?
Small, But
Incredibly
Charming
Slickville
By Pamela Palongue
A multitude of coal-mining towns sprang
up in the mid-Atlantic region in the late
19th and early 20th centuries. In most
cases, when the coal was gone, the town also
largely disappeared. But Slickville is still
going strong, which makes it rather unique.
In fact, Slickville has many things that set
it apart.
Founded in 1917, it was named after
Donald Slick of the Cambria Steel
Company. Many eastern Europeans
flocked to Slickville, eager to accept jobs
working in the mines in order to support
their families. They came from several
countries, but a huge number of them were
hardworking Ukrainians from a remote
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Photos courtesy of Alexander Popichak
region called Lemkovyna. This region was
in a country called Galicia (present-day
southern Poland and western Ukraine) in
the north Carpathian Mountains. This fairly
remote area was prone to invasions from
neighboring countries which resulted in a
unique language that was actually a mixture
of Ukrainian, Russian, Czech and Polish.
The mines closed in 1942 and some of
the Galicians moved on to other places,
but a fairly large contingent still remained
in the 1960s. Currently only about 15%
of Slickville’s population is made up of
descendants of these original Galicians
who were mostly of the Catholic and
Orthodox faith.
According to the Very Reverend Father
Robert Popichak of the Holy Ghost
Orthodox Church in Slickville, there’s
not anyone in the town who speaks
this particular dialect fluently anymore.
However, the customs are still carried out
with great gusto.
The Ukrainian Orthodox members
observe Lent with a very strict diet which
prohibits meat, eggs and dairy products. On
Good Friday, the congregants walked around
the church three times with the Icon and
held a burial service. Another unique custom
is greeting visitors with salt and bread, and
Rev. Popichak says, “If you visit us, the
[people] will welcome you like you’re their
long-lost cousin!”
Another unique feature of Slickville is
that many of the original buildings from the
mining town have been preserved and are
still in use today, including the company
housing, the company store, the mine’s office
and repair shop and the grade school which
closed in 1985.
Always resourceful, the town turned the
unused Pennsylvania Railroad bed that ran
from Slickville to Saltsburg into a hiking trail
in 2007 with links to the Great Allegheny
Passage.
Though Slickville is tiny (less than
400 people) its charm is persuasive. Says
Rev. Popichak, who drives from Carnegie
Township every week to hold services in
the little church, “I wouldn’t trade it for a
cathedral.”
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