Pittsburgh, showing the junction of the Allegheny and Monongahela Rivers
II
It has already been said that the city is a gateway from the East to the West and South, and as such it is the center of a vast railway system. The principal railroads serving Pittsburgh are the Pennsylvania, Baltimore and Ohio, the New York Central Lines, and the Wabash System, and she has also a numerous fleet of boats plying the three rivers. Coal is brought to the city by boats as well as by rail, and great fleets of barges carry it and other heavy freight down the Ohio. A ship canal for the establishment of water transportation between Pittsburgh and Lake Erie (127.5 miles) has been projected. The railroads carry through Pittsburgh over eight per cent. of all the railroad traffic of the United States; and have a particularly heavy tonnage of coal, coke, and iron and steel products; while a large proportion of the iron ore that is produced in the Lake Superior region is brought here to supply Pittsburgh manufactures. The total railway and river tonnage is greater than that of any other city in the world, amounting in 1906 to 122,000,000 tons, of which about 12,000,000 tons were carried on boats down the Ohio. Her tonnage is equal to one half the combined tonnage of the Atlantic and Pacific coasts. The following table will be very interesting as showing the extraordinary fact that the tonnage of Pittsburgh exceeds the combined tonnage of the five other greatest cities in the world (1902):
| Pittsburgh | 86,636,680 tons |
| London | 17,564,110 tons |
| New York | 17,398,000 " |
| Antwerp | 16,721,000 " |
| Hamburg | 15,853,490 " |
| Liverpool | 13,157,720 " |
| Total | 80,694,320 " |
| Pittsburgh's excess | 5,942,360 " |
Pittsburgh has freight yards with a total capacity for more than 60,000 cars. Its harbor has a total length on the three rivers of twenty-eight miles, with an average width of about one thousand feet, and has been deepened by the Davis Island Dam (1885) and by dredging. Slack water navigation has been secured on the Allegheny River by locks and dams at an expense of more than a million and a quarter dollars. The Monongahela River from Pittsburgh to the West Virginia State line (91.5 miles) was improved by a private company in 1836, which built seven locks and dams. This property was condemned and bought by the United States Government, in 1897 for $3,761,615, and the Government is planning to rebuild and enlarge these works.
Pittsburgh is surrounded by the most productive coal-fields in the country. The region is also rich in petroleum and natural gas, and although the petroleum in the immediate vicinity has been nearly exhausted, it is still obtained through pipes from the neighboring regions. The first petroleum pipe line reached Pittsburgh in 1875.
Pittsburgh is also a port of entry, and for the year ending December, 1907, the value of its imports amounted to $2,416,367.
In 1806 the manufacture of iron was begun, and by 1825 this had become the leading industry. Among the earlier prominent iron industries was the Kensington Iron Works, of which Samuel Church (born February 5, 1800; died December 7, 1857), whose family has been resident in Pittsburgh from 1822 to the present day, was the leading partner. In the manufacture of iron and steel products Pittsburgh ranks first among the cities of the United States, their value in 1905 amounting to $92,939,860, or 53.3 per cent. of the total of the whole country. Several towns in the near neighborhood are also extensively engaged in the same industry, and in 1902 Allegheny County produced about 24 per cent. of the pig iron; nearly 34 per cent. of the Bessemer steel; 44 per cent. of the open hearth steel; 53 per cent. of the crucible steel; 24 per cent. of the steel rails, and 59 per cent. of the structural shapes that were made that year in the United States. In 1905 the value of Pittsburgh's foundry and machine-shop products amounted to $9,631,514; of the product of steam railroad repair shops, $3,726,990; of malt liquors, $3,166,829; of slaughtering and meat-packing products, $2,732,027; of cigars and cigarettes, $2,297,228; of glass, $2,130,540; and of tin and terne plate, $1,645,570. Electrical machinery, apparatus, and supplies were manufactured largely in the city, to a value in 1905 of $1,796,557. The Heinz Company has its main pickle plant in Pittsburgh, the largest establishment of its kind in the world.
Pittsburgh's first glass works was built in 1797 by James O'Hara. In 1900, and for a long period preceding, the town ranked first among American cities in the manufacture of glass, but in 1905 it was outranked in this industry by Muncie, Indiana, Millville, New Jersey, and Washington, Pennsylvania; but in the district outside of the limits of Pittsburgh much glass is manufactured, so that the Pittsburgh glass district is still the greatest in the country. In Pittsburgh or its immediate vicinity the more important plants of the United States Steel Corporation are located, including the Carnegie Works at Homestead. Just outside the limits also are the plants of the Westinghouse Company for the manufacture of electrical apparatus, of air-brakes which George Westinghouse invented in 1868, and of devices for railway signals which he also invented.
Alexander Johnston Cassatt, one of the greatest of the Pennsylvania Railroad presidents, and perhaps the most far-seeing and resourceful of all our captains of industry of the present generation, was born here. James McCrea, the present wise and conservative president of that road, lived here for twenty years. Andrew Carnegie, Henry Phipps, and Henry C. Frick were the strongest personalities who grew up with the Carnegie steel interests. George Westinghouse, whose inventive genius, as shown in his safety appliances, has so greatly reduced the hazards of railway travel and of operation, has long been one of the industrial and social pillars of the community. John A. Brashear, astronomer and educator, the maker of delicate instruments, is a well-beloved citizen.