From glaciers to steel, the history of Pittsburgh is built on a solid base.

There are many big events in the story of this area: George Washington’s military defeat in 1754 to the emergence of commercial radio in 1920.

Historians and observers of the past listed below offered thoughts and discussions on the 20 top events in that development.

• Perry Blatz, associate professor of history, Duquesne University

• Ron Barafft, director of museum and archives, Rivers of Steel National Heritage Area.

• Carmen DiCiccio, a Pittsburgh history expert at the University of Pittsburgh.

• John A. Harper, a geologist with the state Department of Conservation and Natural Resources

• Andy Masich, CEO of the Western Pennsylvania Historical Society and the Senator John Heinz History Center.

• Anne Madarasz, museum division director at the history center.

• Albert M. Tannler, historical collections director of the Pittsburgh History & Landmarks Foundation.

Valleys not hills

Between 150,000 and 200,000 years ago, the first glaciation in what is now Western Pennsylvania stopped what was then a northwesterly flow of rivers and began the shaping of this corner of the state, Harper says

The geologist maintains this really is an area of “valleys, not hills.” When the glaciers stopped the ancestral flow of the rivers, they created a great pond that overflowed and cut the riverbeds.

The result was the modern Allegheny, Monongahela and Ohio rivers, all the other waterways, and the hillsides leading to them. It became an area that seemed like home for Scottish and Irish settlers, and had rivers that were the backbone of industry.

The first home

If glaciers shaped the area, the oldest settlers in North America took advantage by settling under what has become known as the Meadowcroft Rock Shelter.

The site, near Avella, Washington County, about 35 miles from Pittsburgh, bears archaeological signs of settlement dating back 16,000 — and perhaps 19,000 — years ago. That makes it the oldest site of settlement in North America.

It is a National Historic Landmark and the Meadowcroft Rock Shelter and Museum of Rural Life is open for visits. Details: 724-587-3412.

Raising the flag

On Nov. 25, 1758, Gen. John Forbes raised the British flag over the ruins of Fort Duquesne and began work on its successor, Fort Pitt.

It marked the establishment of Pittsburgh as an English-speaking town at the confluence of the Allegheny, Monongahela and Ohio rivers.

Its placement at the western reaches of colonial development also served to make Pittsburgh a gateway to the west.

A place for learning

On Feb. 28, 1787, the Pittsburgh Academy was founded to give the growing residential area a site for higher education. That school became the University of Pittsburgh.

That action led to the institution of other colleges and universities, which employ more than 25,000 people and serve 55,000 students in the city and its nearby suburbs, according to the Pittsburgh Council on Higher Education.

When the steel industry died in the 1970s and ’80s, the city became dominated by the work of its education and medical-care industries, the “eds and meds,” as Masich calls them.

The beginning of industrial might

The foundation of the Pittsburgh Glass Works in 1797 was the first hint of the industry that was to emerge from this outpost.

Maderasz says it was the first factory west of the Allegheny Mountains and was fueled by coal from the Pittsburgh seam, later to have a different, and equally huge role in the steel industry.

The mill began shipping glass down the Ohio River, helping to establish settlements there and onto the Mississippi River. Pittsburgh became more than an outpost town; it was a supplier for the westward movement.

The Gateway to the West

Meriwether Lewis and William Clark used Pittsburgh as the beginning of their exploration of the continent in 1803, but on April 3, 1807, James Fleming Sr., an enterprising businessman from Irwin, began a commercial river trip to New Orleans.

That established Pittsburgh as a gateway for business, too, and was another step fueling a ship- and boat-building industry that continued through World War II.

It also set the course for first steamboat trip on the same route, the 1811 journey of Robert Fulton’s “New Orleans.”

Mining of the seam

Coal from the Pittsburgh seam, first mined in 1760, is found in the 1840s to be an excellent source for coke, the by-product that produces incredible heat for steel production.

Mining of Pittsburgh seam boomed in nearby Fayette County. In 1856, the Pittsburgh and Connnellsville Gas-Coal and Co. opened its coke works and was producing 5 million pounds of coke a week. In 1859, coke first was used to fuel the Clinton Furnace in the city’s South Side, setting the stage for coke’s role in the steel industry.

DiCiccio says Pittsburgh should be thought of as “a coke town more than a steel town” because of the role the supply of coke played in the steel industry. At its peak in 1913, the Connellsville area coke industry had 38,000 ovens and produced half of the nation’s coke supply.

The flame of creation

On April 10, 1845, a fire ripped through a third of the city, destroying 982 buildings and leaving 12,000 people homeless. Maderasz says it also began a stratification that began by turning the Downtown area into a business district. Homeowners moved to the north and east of the city, steps to the first suburbs.

She also believes the energy of the reconstruction was a display of vitality that impressed a young Thomas Mellon, patriarch of the banking empire, who saw the financial wisdom in acquiring property in the area.

Just a bit bigger

In 1868, the City of Pittsburgh annexed townships to the east that have become the Squirrel Hill, Shadyside and Oakland areas.

DiCiccio points out that also forced further development of public transit and roadway systems, leading to the city’s current appearance.

It also was the start of further annexation: in 1872, it took over Birmingham, now known as the South Side, and in 1907 acquired the City of Allegheny, now the North Side. If the glaciers defined topography, the annexations set up the city’s look.

The business of working

In 1869, entrepreneur George Westinghouse founded Westinghouse Air Brake, a firm that made trains safer, and longer because of the increased ability to stop their many cars.

The success of that firm lead to the development of such important companies as Westinghouse Electric and Union Switch and Signal.

Westinghouse’s corporations also led the way in giving employees paid vacations and weekends off, features considered routine today.

The first steelers

In 1875, industrialist Andrew Carnegie opened the Edgar Thomson Steel Works in Braddock, a step toward the creation of the one-time dominance of the steel industry in this area.

The works, which were focused on building rails for the Pennsylvania Railroad, was created when Carnegie encountered in Europe the Bessemer process, an inexpensive method for the mass production of steel.

Carnegie, McCandless and Co. eventually became Carnegie Steel, which, in subsequent mergers became U.S. Steel, the industrial giant.

The bitter roots of unionism

A strike protesting wage and job cuts by the Pennsylvania Rail Road in 1877 culminates in the arrival of militia from Philadelphia, the deaths of 26 workers and a massive railyard fire,

It is, Masich and DiCiccio suggest, the roots of the labor union movement, where workers decided they needed solidarity to stand up to corporate strength. That led to the formation of what would become the American Federation of Labor at a meeting in Pittsburgh in 1881.

The militant solidarity is intensified in the Homestead Steel Strike in 1892 and carries forward to March of 1936, when U.S. Steel agreed to recognize the Steel Workers Organizing Committee, which became the United Steelworkers.

The cast of characters

The beginning of what has been called the Great Immigration in 1881 played a large role in making Pittsburgh an ethnic smorgasbord.

Immigration and Naturalization Services statistics say between 1851 and 1880, 7.5 million people came to the States. Between 1881 and 1910, the number jumped to 17.7 million.

Industrial jobs that called for masses of unskilled labor made Pittsburgh a frequent destination and ultimately led to a city population of 676,806 in 1950, making it the 12th largest city in the nation.

The look of the city

Pittsburgh’s entry into the architecture renaissance that swept the nation through the mid-1880s still dominates Downtown today.

Tannler talks about the building of the Allegheny County Courthouse and Jail (1884-86) and buildings such as the Duquesne Club (1887-89) as being reflective of the growth of the city core.

Masich also points to the construction of the Carnegie Building in 1895 as pointing to the use of structural steel in skyscraper building, giving Pittsburgh a role in the construction industry, as well.

Putting a ‘wow’ in Pittsburgh

The World’s Columbian Exhibition, or World’s Fair, in Chicago in 1893 “made people say ‘wow, what are they doing in Pittsburgh?’ ” Masich says.

It was illuminated by George Westinghouse’s alternating current, featured the first Ferris Wheel, designed by city resident George Ferris, and visitors at the food of H.J. Heinz, who made ketchup a Pittsburgh specialty.

Masich and others talk about the fair showing Pittsburgh to be a forward-looking city of innovation, not just a inland stopping point.

Big bucks

On March 11, 1901, Andrew Carnegie sold off his holdings in the steel industry to J.P. Morgan for $492 million, a move that “put God in hock to Andrew Carnegie,” Masich says.

It also established U.S. Steel, but, more importantly for Western Pennsylvania, elevated Carnegie’s great efforts at philanthropy.

It lead to the Carnegie Museum of Natural History and all the museums connected to it today, the Carnegie Institute of Technology, now Carnegie Mellon University, and the region-wide system of libraries.

… that old ball game

The Pittsburgh Pirates lost the first World Series to Boston, five games to three, in 1903, but it began to define a lifestyle devoted to sports in Western Pennsylvania.

DiCiccio argues a more apt date is the founding of what became the Pittsburgh Steelers in 1933, but whatever date is used, the results are the same:

A town dominated by winning, and the hard work that goes with it; a town where Friday nights are dictated by teenagers on a gridiron; a town where sports are the dominant religion.

Greening after a killer smog

Between Oct., 26 and 31, 1948, 7,000 people died when a temperature inversion choked Donora in nearby Washington County with pollution from a zinc and wire works.

The calamity led to the 1955 Pennsylvania Clean Air Act and the 1970 U.S. Clean Air Act, laws that tried to control the fumes that hover over industrial area.

The killer smog also is given some credit with fostering green construction thinking. The city has been among national leaders in creating buildings winning top LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) ratings.

A healthy outlook

On April 12, 1955, a vaccine developed by Dr. Jonas Salk at the University of Pittsburgh was declared to be a safe and effective way to fight polio, a disease that until then was something of a plague.

The medical achievement set the stage for the growth of medical care and research in the city, including that of cardiologist Dr. George McGovern and transplant pioneer Dr. Thomas Starzl.

The Pittsburgh area now is filled with medical efforts in all fields at such research hospitals as the various campuses of the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center and the West Penn Allegheny Health System.

The death of steel

It was a lingering death that some will argue goes back to job cutbacks in the ’60s, but steel historian Barafft points to the years 1984-86 as the most heartbreaking times.

That saw the closing of the Homestead and Duquesne works of U.S.Steel and the J&L Works in Pittsburgh, meaning the loss of 60,000 jobs.

The end of Pittsburgh as the Steel City meant a massive decline in population, but new uses for industrial sites, changing job emphasis and the development of riverfronts as recreational area have led to the city’s first decade in the 21st century.

---

Copyright ©2026— Trib Total Media, LLC (TribLIVE.com)

---