Pittsburgh, Pa. [The “Smoky City,” “Iron City”; named in 1758, when the French had been driven out by Washington; Fort Pitt, after William Pitt, Earl of Chatham, the name Pittsburgh being adopted in 1769.]
It is the second city of Pennsylvania and one of the chief industrial centers of the United States, and occupies the tongue of land between the Monongahela and the Allegheny, which here unite to form the Ohio, and also a strip of land on the south side of the Monongahela. The sister city, Allegheny, situated on the north bank of the Allegheny and extending down to the Ohio, was incorporated with Pittsburgh in 1907 and is now known as the North Side. The rivers are crossed by numerous bridges.
Smithfield Street, diverging from Liberty Avenue, not far from the Union Station, leads to the river Monongahela, on the other side of which, from Washington Heights, may be obtained a fine view of the city. On Liberty Avenue, to the right, is the City Hall a fine structure of white sandstone. A little farther on, to the left, is the Post Office. At the bridge are the Monongahela Hotel and the Baltimore & Ohio Station.
Crossing the Smithfield Street Bridge, Mt. Washington (three hundred and seventy feet) may be ascended by one of the three inclined railways on this side. These interesting, but at first somewhat startling, pieces of apparatus are worked by cables and transport horses and carriages as well as persons.
The finest building in Pittsburgh is the Allegheny County Court House, in Grant Street, a splendid example of H. H. Richardson’s treatment of Romanesque, erected in 1888 at a cost of two million five hundred thousand dollars. The massive Prison is connected with the Court House by a finely handled stone bridge. The main tower is three hundred and twenty feet high. The government building cost one million five hundred thousand dollars.
Other buildings of importance are the Frick Building, a granite office structure of twenty stories at the corner of Fifth Avenue and Grant Street; the Carnegie Building and the Farmers’ Bank Building (these two also in Fifth Avenue); the Union National Bank Building and the Commonwealth Trust Co. Building, in Fourth Avenue; the First Presbyterian Church, in Sixth Avenue; the Fulton Building, and the Bessemer Building (the last two at the corner of Sixth Street and Duquesne Way).
More to the east are the Academy of Our Lady of Mercy and the new Calvary Episcopal Church (at the corner of Shady Avenue and Walnut Street), a beautiful example of thirteenth century Gothic. The Roman Catholic Cathedral of St. Paul stands in Fifth Avenue, at the corner of Craig Street.
To the east of the city lies Schenley Park, containing the fine Phipps Conservatory and the Hall of Botany. Near the Forbes Street entrance to the Park is the great central building of the Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh, in which are housed not only the main collection of the library, but also two of the three departments of the Carnegie Institute. The structure, originally built in the Italian Renaissance style at a cost of eight hundred thousand dollars, was remodeled [616] and enlarged in 1904-1907 at an additional cost of five million dollars. The city is also the seat of Pittsburgh University, Holy Ghost College, and Penn’s College for Women. The great iron and steel works have made the prosperity and reputation of Pittsburgh. Among these are the Edgar Thomson Steel Works, the Homestead Steel Works, the Duquesne Steel Works, the American Bridge Co., the Jones & Laughlin Works, the Oliver Iron & Steel Co., the Crescent Steel Works, and the Pressed Steel Car Co.
Its manufactures include everything, indeed, which can be made of iron, from a fifty-eight-ton gun to nails and tacks; steel in its various applications; electrical machinery and appliances; all descriptions of glass and glassware; silver and nickel-plated ware; Japan and Britannia ware; pressed tin, brass, copper, bronzes; Portland cement, earthenware, crucibles, fire-pots, bricks; furniture, wagons and carriages; brushes, bellows, mechanical supplies of all kinds; natural-gas fittings, and tools for oil and gas wells. Pittsburgh has, also, the largest manufactory of cork, and the largest pickling and preserving establishment in the world.
In 1754 a few English traders built a stockade here, but were driven away by the French. The latter replaced the stockade by a fort, which, in honor of the Governor of Canada, they called Duquesne. In 1758 it was taken by the English, who next year commenced a large and strong fortification, which, in honor of the elder Pitt, then Prime Minister, they called Fort Pitt. The settlement became a borough in 1804, and in 1816 was incorporated as the city of Pittsburgh. In 1872 the limits of the city were extended across the Monongahela, and by 1906 it extended over twenty-eight square miles. In 1907 Allegheny City (in spite of the opposition of a large majority of its inhabitants) was annexed; the Supreme Court of the United States declared the act valid, and thus Allegheny became the North Side of the present Pittsburgh.