Pittsburgh
Pittsburgh, Allegheny County, Pennsylvania
Marker Inscription
Gateway to the West and steel center of the world. Named for William Pitt by Gen. Forbes after the fall of French Fort Duquesne in 1758. Laid out as a town by John Campbell in 1764. Incorporated as a city, 1816.
Erected by Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission
The Story
When British General John Forbes captured the smoldering ruins of French Fort Duquesne in 1758, he renamed the strategic point where three rivers meet in honor of British statesman William Pitt. The little town laid out in 1764 sat at the literal doorway to the trans-Appalachian frontier, and by the time it became a city in 1816 it was already funneling settlers and goods westward. In the century that followed, its furnaces and mills earned it a global reputation as the steel capital of the world.
Why it matters
Pittsburgh's site controlled the gateway between the settled East and the western interior, and its later steel industry helped forge the material backbone of industrial America.
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Related people
- · William Pitt
- · General John Forbes
- · John Campbell
Related events
- · Fall of Fort Duquesne, 1758
- · Incorporation of Pittsburgh, 1816
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Pittsburgh
Forest Hills, PA · est. 1946
The forks of the Ohio, where the Allegheny and Monongahela join, were among the most fought-over ground in colonial America. After General John Forbes forced the French to abandon Fort Duquesne in 1758, the point was renamed for William Pitt, laid out as a town in 1764, and chartered as a city in 1816. From that frontier outpost grew the steelmaking colossus that supplied the nation's rails, bridges, and armaments.
John Scull (1765-1828)
Pittsburgh, PA · est. 1958
In 1786, when Pittsburgh was still a raw frontier town at the forks of the Ohio, the Berks County native John Scull printed the first edition of the Pittsburgh Gazette—the first newspaper published west of the Allegheny Mountains. From his home and print shop here, Scull carried the printed word into the trans-Appalachian West and took an active hand in the region's civic affairs. His paper endured, becoming the Post-Gazette in 1927.
Allegheny County
Pittsburgh, PA
When Allegheny County was carved out of Westmoreland and Washington counties in 1788, its seat at Pittsburgh was already a generation old — laid out in 1764 at the strategic forks where the Allegheny and Monongahela join to form the Ohio, a gateway that had drawn soldiers, traders, and settlers pushing west. Incorporated as a city in 1816, Pittsburgh grew into one of the great engines of American industry, its furnaces and mills pouring out the iron and steel that earned the region its "Workshop of the World" reputation. The county's story runs straight from a frontier river junction to the smoke-and-fire heart of the nation's industrial age.
Steamboat "New Orleans"
Pittsburgh, PA · est. 2011
On October 15, 1811, the side-wheeler New Orleans slid into the Monongahela near Suke's Run — the first steamboat ever built west of the Alleghenies. Its launch proved that steam power could conquer the powerful currents of the Ohio and Mississippi, and Pittsburgh, already rich in iron and timber, quickly became a bustling yard for building the boats that carried a nation west.