Shannopin Town
Pittsburgh, Allegheny County, Pennsylvania
Marker Inscription
Name of a Delaware Indian village that covered this site from about 1731 to the French occupation, 1754. It was the Allegheny River terminus of the Raystown Indian and Traders Path from Carlisle to the west.
Erected by Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission
The Story
Before Pittsburgh existed, a Delaware (Lenape) community stood on this ground from about 1731 until the French moved into the region in 1754. It sat at the Allegheny River end of the Raystown Path, an Indian and traders' route running from Carlisle out to the western country. In an era when rivers and footpaths were the highways of the continent, this was a hub of Native trade and travel at the strategic forks of the Ohio.
Why it matters
It preserves the Indigenous geography that underlay the whole struggle for the Ohio forks, reminding us that Pittsburgh rose on ground long shaped by Native nations and their trails.
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Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Kuskusky Path
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Long before paved roads crossed western Pennsylvania, a network of Native American trails threaded the forests, and the Kuskusky Path was one of the busiest. Through most of the 1700s it carried hunters, traders, warriors, war captives, and diplomats between the great confluence at Fort Duquesne/Fort Pitt and the Delaware (Lenape) town of Kuskusky, at today's New Castle. As European settlers pushed in, they raised homes and churches right alongside the old trace, layering a new world atop an Indigenous one.
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