Pittsburg

or Pittsburgh, a city of western Pennsylvania. It is situated at the junction of the Alleghany and the Monongahela rivers. Fort Duquesne was situated at the far extremity of the peninsula between the two rivers. It was captured from the French by the English in 1758. The name was changed, at the suggestion of Washington, to Fort Pitt in honor of William Pitt, prime minister of England. The old blockhouse built by General Bouquet in 1763 still stands. It is preserved by the city with great care. The city of Pittsburg was laid out around the fort in 1764. It has received continual additions of territory, including Allegheny, until in 1906, the city, suburbs included, had a population of not far from a million people.

The city owes its early commercial development to its situation at the head of deep water navigation. It was for many years a center of distribution for the upper Ohio Valley. The building of railroads only added to the commercial importance of the city. It is about twelve hours distant by railroad from Washington, Philadelphia, and New York. Louisville, Chicago, and Albany may be reached in about the same length of time. Numerous trunk lines of railway pass through Pittsburg. The Ohio river gives access to the water-ways of the entire Mississippi Valley. Local statisticians claim that, in point of weight, Pittsburg receives and dispatches more freight than any other city on the face of the globe. The grand total approaches 100,000,000 tons a year.

Pittsburg is, above all, an industrial city. The greatest coal fields in the world are in the immediate vicinity, or are easily reached by water. The most productive oil fields and gas wells known are in western Pennsylvania. Excellent iron ores are close at hand, making Pittsburg a vast industrial encampment and winning for it the nickname of "The Iron City." Clouds of smoke float in the air; armies of workmen tend the forges and mills; the rattle and roar of machinery and the clink of hammers is heard in every direction. In the production of coke, pig iron, steel, iron for bridges and buildings, steel rails, armor plate for battleships, and glass, Pittsburg leads the cities of North America and, in some items, leads the world. Most of the beer bottles used in the United States are made here. Cork is imported in flat sheets from Europe and is cut into corks for bottles here by the largest cork factory in the world. There are important manufactures of tableware, locomotives, steam engines, salt, brick, stoves, brassware, bronze goods, white lead, leather, paper, and pottery.

Pittsburg is the center of the lumber industry of western Pennsylvania. There are packing plants that rival the great centers of the West. The largest preserving and pickling works in the United States are located here. The chief works of the United States Steel Corporation, of which Andrew Carnegie was formerly the leading spirit, are located at Philadelphia. George Westinghouse, the inventor of the automatic air brake, rotary engine, a railway frog, and other railway appliances, made his reputation and his fortune at Pittsburg. The great National Glass Trust has its central offices and works here. Counting large and small, there are nearly 5,000 manufacturing establishments in Pittsburg, employing a capital of half a billion of dollars.

Pittsburg is also a city of churches. There are over 300 edifices. The early settlers were chiefly Scotch. The city is still a center of Presbyterianism. A Roman Catholic and a Protestant Episcopal bishop reside here. The Pittsburg Gazette, now the oldest paper in the Mississippi Valley, was established in 1786.

The usual system of public instruction is maintained liberally. There are several denominational colleges, including the Western University of Pennsylvania, Pennsylvania College for women, three Presbyterian theological seminaries, several Roman Catholic institutions, and Carnegie Institute. The latter is largely an industrial school. The buildings cost $6,000,000. Andrew Carnegie gave $2,000,000 for the encouragement of manual training. The city is also indebted to the same public-spirited citizen for the Carnegie Free Library. It already shelters 150,000 volumes made accessible to the reading public through a central building and several branch libraries. The county bar possesses the best equipped law library of the kind in the United States. The city takes pride in fourteen hospitals and in numerous charitable institutions, including a newsboys' hall, homes for the aged, for working girls, orphans, widows, etc. Public parks, boulevards, and zoological gardens afford places of outdoor recreation and amusement. Among notable public buildings are the Carnegie Library, the United States Custom House and Postoffice, the Frick Building, the Carnegie Building, etc. The courthouse is considered one of the most imposing public buildings in the United States.

See Steel