After the Regent Square Theater closed in 2019, Pittsburgh Sound + Image director of programming Steven Haines discovered a 100-year-old movie with an Etna connection. Now he wants to show it to the public.

Haines was given all of the films from the Regent Square Theater to comb through.

“This one very quickly stood out because I could tell that it was older just by the design of the canisters,” Haines said.

Haines said that the footage revealed that it was a silent film from the 1920s called “Spang’s First Century.” The film was sponsored by Etna-based manufacturer Spang Chalfant and Company — founded in 1828 and early competitor of Andrew Carnegie — and charts the history of the company alongside the story of the Pittsburgh region and its ties to industry. Haines said that within 10 minutes of watching the film, he could tell that it was depicting Pittsburgh.

“I started trying to find information on (the film) online and I found nothing,” Haines said. “I just kept looking and asking around. I checked international databases and nobody had anything on the film. It was pretty clear that this was almost certainly the only copy in existence.”

The film describes Pittsburgh as the center of industrial production for the country and details the importance of Spang Chalfant and Company, innovators in pipe manufacturing, and how the company competed and worked in tandem with other local manufacturers, such as Crucible Steel Company, Carnegie Steel Company, Ambridge Mills and American Barge Company.

“I think the most appealing thing to people will be the views of the city exteriors,” Haines said. “Especially in this film, they’ll be looking back to the 1920s – our city 100 years ago. The majority of the film takes place in the factories in Pittsburgh and in the region. For me, it really drives home the conditions of the labor and how difficult it was.”

According to Historical Etna, Spang, Chalfant and Company was originally founded by Henry Spang in 1894 as the Etna Iron Works and later as Spang and Company. The company was a Pittsburgh iron and steel manufacturer that helped lead to the borough’s founding.

Later, when John Weakley Chalfant, a prominent Pittsburgh businessman, became a major investor in Henry Spang’s company, the name was changed to Spang, Chalfant and Company — which would become a major manufacturer of steel produced in Pittsburgh. The company was a competitor of Andrew Carnegie in the early 1900s, and Henry Spang, John Weakley Chalfant and Andrew Carnegie took integral roles in the growth of Pittsburgh in the first half of the 20th century.

Haines said that the restoration process was fairly convenient for the film because of its condition. The movie had been completed during its initial creation and had held up well over the years in storage.

“We lucked out in that the print we found is in pretty excellent shape considering it’s almost 100 years old,” Haines said. “Really we were able to take a hands-off approach in terms of getting creative with the restoration.”

Pittsburgh Sound and Image received a $20,000 grant from the National Film Preservation Foundation. The money allowed the nonprofit to collaborate with Cranberry-based audio and visual lab, MediaPreserve, to create a 4K digital scan of the original 35mm film print and create a new 35mm print, so that Spang’s First Century can be preserved and exhibited on film in the future.

The nonprofit also raised $9,000 to complete the project and have local musicians create the film’s soundtrack. The film is an hour and 12 minutes, and will premiere on Dec. 7 at the Harris Theater in Downtown Pittsburgh.

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