| Three Centuries of Pittsburgh History | |
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Pittsburgh's growth from an outcropping visited by traders to an industrial center to its position today as a center for technology, medicine and tourism charts a path through many of the important events in U.S. history.
Pre-Industrial
Pittsburgh (1700-1812)
Without written records, historians and archaeologists can only theorize
that Pittsburgh's first modern inhabitants were various Iroquois groups and
later, British and French traders. Two French explorers left a diary of
their 1749 expedition to the confluence of the three rivers (Allegheny,
Monongahela & Ohio), now Point State Park. Four years later, Major
George Washington traveled here as an emissary to warn the French to
evacuate the region. He wrote a report urging that the British construct a
fort at the Forks of the Ohio, declaring the site "extremely
well-situated for a fort, having command of both rivers." The two nations traded control of the
strategic location, each building a fort - the British building Fort
Prince George and the French building Fort Duquesne - only to see it destroyed. The
British recovered and took control of the land in November 1758, after the
French abandoned their fort following the signing of the treaty which ended
the French & Indian War. The British then built a then state-of-the-art
fort, Fort Pitt, named after William Pitt, the Prime Minister of
England. The small village of Pittsborough soon grew around Fort Pitt
and the name was later officially changed to Pittsburgh. Those
first British settlers began mining coal from the southern hillside
(present-day Mt. Washington) opposite
the point in the early 1760s.
Explore Pittsburgh history from this time period:
Coal Mines & Mining Links
Coal mining in Pittsburgh dates back to 1762 when a coal seam was discovered on "Coal Hill" - now known as Mt. Washington. Check out these links for area coal mines and mining tours, Western PA coal mining history, area mining disasters, mine subsidence problems and insurance options and more.Meadowcroft Rock Shelter
One of the oldest inhabited places in America, Meadowcroft Rock Shelter is an archaeological site located in southwestern Pennsylvania which was occupied from at least 12,000 years ago. Archeaologists believe that some parts of the shelter may date back as long ago as 20,000 years.Fort Pitt
Bouquet's Blockhouse, Pittsburgh's oldest building, stands as a reminder of Fort Pitt and the original 18 acres which grew into the City of Pittsburgh. The Fort Pitt Museum, located next to the Blockhouse, offers a wide variety of exhibits and dioramas that cover the early French expeditions into the region to the beginning of Pittsburgh's industrial age.
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The
Age of Industry
