Hardie Hunter Albright
Broadway and Hollywood Actor, Acting Instructor, born December 16, 1904 in the Piper Drug Store Building.
 
Major Thomas McGowan
A renowned Mid-1800s River Officer on the Monongahela River - Irish - lived and grew up on the Shannon Farm in Fallowfield Township.  After he retired, he witnessed many new transportation developments with railroads on both sides of the river, cities and towns springing up, while advances were made in river traffic.  He died in 1902 and his remains are buried in the Monongahela Cemetary.

James McKean
A Scottish immigrant to Charleroi at the age of one, came with his father, Robert, and settled along the banks of the Monongahela River in 1865 where a he established a thriving garden produce farm.  "Jimmie" received his education at Mansfield Academy, he went to Pittsburgh in 1876 and helped establish the firm of Duff & McKean, which dealt in farm implements and via his business networking became prominent.  He became the Pittsburgh Postmaster in 1889-1895, then he became the President of the Union Trust Company of Pittsburgh.  In 1897, he married Athalia Daley of Gibsonton, and in 1890 the Charleroi Plate Glass Company was founded upon the property his father had owned - and this became the founding of the town of Charleroi itself.  He also was very involved in the forming of the Bank of Charleroi becoming its Director, the Charleroi Land Company, and also the formation of the First National Bank of Charleroi.  A Mason, he was once the District Deputy Grand Master of PA, a Knight Templar, and held most of the offices of the Consistory, a member of the Scottish Rites, the 32nd degree, Odd Fellows, Duquesne Club of Pittsburgh, The Pittsburgh Press, and of the Ancient Order of United Workmen.  
 
John Kinsey Tener
89th Governor of PA, 12th to live in the Governor's Mansion, 1st post Revolution non-native born in US, and only 2nd non-native born in PA.  Coming from Tyrone County, Ireland as a boy, after his Irish father died, he accompanied his widowed English-born mother along with his 9 siblings to Pittsburgh where he grew to 6' 4" and an aspiring career as a baseball player.  He graduated from a commercial business school and went to work at age 17 at an iron company in Pittsburgh as a clerk.  He continued to play baseball, having a successful and international career touring with A.G. Spalding from 1885-89.  He married Harriet Day from Haverhill, Massachusetts who was then residing in Charleroi, after which his energic presence was put to work at the new First National Bank of Charleroi, becoming its President in 1898 at age 35.  He played prominent parts in other banks, helping found another one as well.  He was the co-founder of the Charleroi Chamber of Commerce and a charter member of the Charleroi Elks Lodge 494, being its Grand Treasurer in 1904, and 3 years later becoming the Grand Exalted Ruler on the national level.  He was prominently involved in the local railroad, and was President of the company that built the historically significant Charleroi-Monessen Bridge.  In 1908, he was elected to the US Congress (R) representing the 24th District (Washington, Greene, Lawrence Counties); he won a second term, but was also received the nomination for Governor in 1910 for which he served one full term till 1915.  He fulfilled many of the issues upon which he ran including PA's road system, the formation of the State Historical Commission, a state School Code, and the Department of Labor and Industry as well as other important reforms.

Tener dedicated the new Pricedale School during his tenure and afterward returned to his many business interests in the Charleroi region.  After his first wife died, he married another Charleroi woman, Leone Evans, and he spent his remaining years of life as a successful insurance man in Pittsburgh and New York, dying in 1946 at 82.
 
Olive Thomas
Olive Duffy - was known as "America's Sweetheart" lived for 16 years in Charleroi before later moving onto fame and riches as a Ziegfield Follies Girl, the stage and then as an actress that became the toast of Hollywood.  She married Jack Pickford, the brother of Mary, who had his own stardom in those days.  In 1920, the couple went to Paris and under mysterious circumstances, Olive took ill with mercurial poisoning, she suffered greatly before she died a day or so later, having been struck blind and unable to speak, desperately wanting to live.  This was a great tragedy in those days.  Many movies and more information can be gleaned by going to http://www.silentladies.com/PThomas.html and other affiliated sites.
 
Robert Barnhart
An early settler (March, 1890) who studied architecture in New York City became a renowned architect all over the Mon Valley region.  He built many of Charleroi's finest buildings - that are now being inventoried for the Historic District in which they reside, and ended up operating the Electric Theatre and then the America's 4th oldest motion picture theatre, The Palace, that is found on a main street of Charleroi in 1905.  His services were very much in demand in the "boom" years in the late 1800s and early decades of the 1900s.