Cumberland (WQOW) - A discovery at a high school helps create a vivid picture of what life was like in that community more than 80 years ago.
In April, a coach at Cumberland High School found two dusty reels of old film. The film had been shot during the Great Depression by John Plichta, a Cumberland teacher.
"John was a multi-faceted individual. He was a star athlete in his own right and an avid historian. Part of being an avid historian, he wanted to document the world around him. In 1927, he bought a movie camera, a 16 mm movie camera, which was used for filming Cumberland. The camera and all of its accessories cost $600 at the time, which was an entire year's salary for a teacher," said Gregg Condon, John Plichta's nephew.
"One of the people who was featured in the film was Julius Alphonse, probably one of the greatest athletes that Cumberland ever had. (He) played for John in 1929, 1930 on the football team, went on to play at the University of Minnesota, played on two national championship teams there," said Mark Fuller, the Cumberland High School athletic director.
"John had a tremendous interest in ski jumping and was a tremendous ski jumper himself. When he came to town, he raised the funds to build a 60-foot ski jump on a small lake south of town," said Fuller. The ski jump can be seen in the old footage. "This is 83-year-old film, the second oldest film I've ever handled, and it was safe and restorable to the point where I could digitize it, put it into our HD computers and then be able to put it onto DVD for the school and the community. Sixteen millimeter film, 83 years old, is extremely rare," said Tom Koziol from Thomas Video Studio.
The film will be shown on Thursday, July 5th at 5:00 pm and 7:00 pm at the Isle Theater in Cumberland.
"I think this is one of those rare times that a great individual gets the recognition for what he did. You know, most of us live our lives and then we're gone and maybe there isn't much ado made of it. The man's been gone for 28 years and suddenly, it's his night in Cumberland! How wonderful is that," said Condon.
