Pittsburgh, the second city of Pennsylvania, is built on a narrow strip of land where the Allegheny and Monongahela rivers meet to form the Ohio: it extends some 7 or 8 miles up the rivers, and 2 or 3 miles down the Ohio. Pittsburgh is by rail 444 miles from New York, 354 from Philadelphia, and 468 from Chicago. The business portion of the city is on a plain, less than a mile in width, along the banks, while the hills, commanding delightful views, are covered with handsome residences. In this region, where the prevailing soft shales and sandstones have been worn away by the rivers to a depth of 500 or 600 feet, the horizontal layers of coal are exposed, and access afforded to the coal-seams on the sides of the hills and at the bottom of the valleys to an extent elsewhere unknown; the great Pittsburgh coal layer, 8 feet thick, like a broad black band extends around the city 300 feet above the river. Since the introduction of natural gas (see below) the former sobriquet of the 'smoky city' is a misnomer; the clearness of the atmosphere has given an impetus to architecture, and the many new dwellings and business houses are really models of beauty and solidity. The court-house, costing 2,500,000, is of Quincy granite, and is connected with the gaol by a 'bridge of sighs.' The government building cost 1,500,000, and there are besides a city hall of white sandstone, a new Exposition Building, and numerous churches, among which the large Roman Catholic cathedral and Trinity Church (Episcopal) deserve notice. Pittsburgh possesses a good system of schools, and is the seat of a Catholic college. The Carnegie free library was dedicated in 1890. The three rivers are crossed by fifteen bridges, some of them monuments of engineering skill; and the different parts of the city are also connected by a dozen lines of cable, electric, and horse cars.
Pittsburgh's manufactures include everything which can be made of iron, from a 58-ton gun to nails and tacks; steel in its various applications; all descriptions of glass and glassware; silver and nickel-plated ware; Japan and Britannia ware; pressed tin, brass, bronzes; earthenware, crucibles, fire-pots, bricks; furniture, wagons and carriages; brushes, bellows, mechanical supplies of all kinds; natural-gas fittings, tools for oil and gas wells, &c. The production of iron and steel in Pittsburgh and the vicinity is about one-fifth of the total production in the United States. The city contains over twenty blast-furnaces, which in 1890-95 produced about 1,500,000 tons of pig-iron annually (about one-seventh of the amount of the whole country), and over thirty rolling-mills, almost all of which roll steel; their annual production is well over 1,000,000 tons of steel and some 700,000 tons of rolled iron. Of wrought-iron pipe 350,000 tons, and of iron and steel for structural purposes 65,000 tons, are manufactured yearly. There are fifty iron-foundries, representing a capital of $10,000,000, two mills for rolling copper, and a dozen manufactories of white lead, lead paint, lead pipe, or shot. Of glass-factories there are thirty-four where window-glass is made, thirty-seven for flint and lime glass, ten for lamp-chimneys, five for green bottle-glass, and fifteen for prescription-vials.
Eight separate companies—with one directing head—for manufacturing air-brakes, automatic signals, electric light apparatus, and supplying heat and light have a combined capital of $23,170,000. The incandescent lamp has been brought to the greatest state of perfection in this city. Since about 1883 natural gas has been largely used for domestic and manufacturing purposes (see GAS-LIGHTING, Vol. V. p. 105). It is obtained from isolated districts a few miles in extent, within a radius of 20 miles from the city. By drilling into the earth from twelve to fifteen hundred feet a natural gas—mainly methane—rushed from the opening with a pressure of four or five hundred pounds to the square inch, which was found sufficient to force it through pipes to the houses and factories in the city. The purity of this gas, its great heating power, and its cleanliness make it a most excellent substitute for coal for domestic and manufacturing purposes. In 1890 some 7,500,000 cubic feet of this gas were daily consumed in the city. But of late the supply is less abundant, and some factories have returned to the use of coal. In 1892 there were terrible strikes, accompanied by much fighting and bloodshed, at the Carnegie steel-works at Homestead, near Pittsburgh.
The position of Pittsburgh on the eastern border of the great Mississippi river-basin, and her facilities for penetrating to every part by river and rail, give her great natural advantages for trade, and as a depot for exchange and trans-shipment of the produce that naturally comes to her as a centre. In the river business over 9,500,000 are invested. Two lines of packets ply on the Monongahela and three on the Ohio. Seventy tow-boats and thousands of coal-boats, barges, and flats are engaged in the coal trade. In 1889 4,000,000 tons of coal were sent by river to the southern states, while 16,000,000 tons more—making altogether about two-thirds of the yearly output of bituminous coal for the entire state—were sent away by rail or consumed in Pittsburgh itself. In the district there are 15,000 coke-ovens making 6,000,000 tons of coke. Twelve district railroads centre here, six of which are trunk lines. These lines reach out to all points of the compass. The immense volume of transcontinental business passing through Pittsburgh annually is probably excelled by no city except perhaps Chicago. Pittsburgh has twenty-seven national banks and twenty state banks, with a total capital of 14,856,750. The interests of Allegheny City (q.v.; pop. in 1890, 105,287), on the opposite bank of the Allegheny River, though it is a separate municipality, are in all respects identical with those of Pittsburgh.
History.—In the early history of America the site of Pittsburgh was a point of great interest, and was familiarly known as the 'Gateway to the West.' Here traders, settlers, and adventurers, who had worked their way from Philadelphia by a chain of forts, congregated, and here flat-boats were built which carried them down the Ohio to the unknown regions beyond. In 1754 a few English traders built a stockade at the point, but were driven away by the French the following April. The latter replaced the stockade by a fort, which, in honour of the governor of Canada, they called Duquesne. It was near the present outskirts of the city that Braddock (q.v.) was surprised in 1755; and on October 15, 1758, General Grant and his Highlanders had reached the hill on which the court-house now stands when they were surrounded by the Indians and nearly exterminated. The following month, however, General Forbes took possession of what remained of old Fort Duquesne, the French having fled down the Ohio, leaving the buildings in ruins. In 1759 the English commenced a large and strong fortification, which, in honour of the elder Pitt (see CHATHAM, EARL OF), then prime-minister, they called Fort Pitt. The fort is said to have cost the English government £60,000. The settlement became a borough in 1804, and in 1816 the borough was incorporated as the city of Pittsburg. Pop. (1810) 4768; (1840) 21,115; (1870) 86,076 (with Birmingham, included soon after, 121,799); (1880) 156,389; (1890) 238,617.