Neptune's Needle

City (2000 pop. 334,563), (cap.) Allegheny co., W Pa., at the confluence of the Allegheny and the Monongahela rivers, which join in downtown Pittsburgh to form the Ohio R.; 40º26'N 79º58'W. A major river port, highway and RR center, and air transportation hub. The city was a leading industrial center in the 19th cent. Since the 1960s, as the number of those employed in the steel industry has declined, the city’s economic base has undergone a dramatic shift from mfg. to service industries and commercial enterprises. As of the early 1990s, Pittsburgh ranked 3d among U.S. cities as a center for corporate hq. The city was founded on the site of the Native Amer. town of Shannopin, a late 17th-cent. fur-trading post with many canoe routes and trails. Fort Duquesne, built by the French in the middle of the 18th cent., later fell to the English and was renamed Fort Pitt. The village surrounding the fort was settled in 1760, and it prospered with the opening of the Northwest Territory. At the height of industrial development in the late 19th cent., Pittsburgh was a hotbed of labor unrest and union movements. The “Steel City” was once also called the “Smoky City,” because of severe air and water pollution; the problem, however, gradually abated by the late 1970s as industrial production fell. Sprawled over a hilly area, Pittsburgh has become an attractive city.

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Compiler

Peter Richards