115 - 10th Avenue

History Museum’s Oral History Program preserves part of City’s past destined for demolition

A coal barn, which is set for demolition in the next few weeks by its owner, Joseph Midura, at 115-10th Avenue, and was built in the early 1800’s, according to North Tonawanda City Engineer Dale Marshall, is the subject of an oral history video completed for the North Tonawanda History Museum by its Oral History Program Coordinator Jason Law, assisted by Museum volunteer Ashley Herman.

Believed to have originally been used as a chicken coop, the structure was later used as a coal barn because the house at 115-10th Avenue was heated with wood and coal.  A combination coal (for heating) and gas (for cooking) stove later replaced the original heating methods in the home.  In the 1980’s a gas space heater was installed in the home.

The ashes from the coal stove were removed daily and often used to cover snow and ice in order to assist in melting it and providing traction.  A small quantity of coal from the barn was donated to the Museum.  Coal was delivered to 115-10th Avenue by a coal truck which entered the alley running east and west between 9th and 10th Avenues.  The alley was closed after the 1960’s.  Coal was then purchased in bushels from Thiele Coal on Shawnee Road in Wheatfield.  The wood construction of the coal barn is not a post and beam, but rather a frame construction with 2’x6’boards and other boards rough hewn.

Mr. Midura reports that his mother told him the barn was originally one of a group of outbuildings from a farmhouse in the area.   According to official City records, the home at 115-10th Avenue was built in 1890.  The house at 113-10th Avenue was constructed in 1830.  At the time, people owned cows, pigs, goats, and chickens.  Mr. Midura’s grandparents, Michael and Mary Czaja, lived in the 115-10th Avenue house.  They had two daughters, Stella (deceased), Jane, and four sons, Joseph (deceased), Edward (deceased), Stanley (a Marine killed at Iwo Jima during World War II), and John.  All four sons served in the military during WWII.  Both sets of Midura’s grandparents arrived in the U.S. from Poland, learned English, and became U.S. citizens.  None of their children graduated from high school because of the Depression and World War II.