The first humans to live in what is now southwestern Pennsylvania were descendants of Asians who had crossed the Bering Straight and spread down through North America, hunting, gathering, and migrating, around 12 to 18 thousand years ago.
The coming of Europeans is what is likely to have wiped out the original native tribe of the Pittsburgh region, the Monongahela. Spread of European diseases to which the natives had no resistance, plus the fur trade resulting in depleted game supply, are theorized to have contributed to the disappearance of all humans from vast sections of western Pennsylvania in the 1600s. Soon, however, other displaced tribes from the south and east of Iroquois and Algonquian origins, especially the Shawnee, Seneca, Susquehannock, and the Lenni Lenape (Delaware), moved in to take their place.
In the 1700s the French were the first European settlers to come to the Pittsburgh area. When the British learned that the French had settled in the area, young Major George Washington was sent to demand their withdrawal. When the French refused to leave, Washington returned with troops to evict them; however, the British garrison was defeated. It was not until the French and Indian War that the British managed to capture Fort Duquesne and construct a larger fort on the same site. They named the new “burgh” Fort Pitt after William Pitt the Elder, a famous British statesman.
Model of Fort Duquesne
Large coal deposits were discovered in the early 19th century. Pittsburgh’s central location along trade routes helped make the city an industrial center. When steel, iron and glass production began, thousands of immigrants poured into Pittsburgh to work in the mills and coal mines. From late 1800s through mid 1900s, Pittsburgh led the U.S. in the production of iron, steel, glass and coal mining.
Unfortunately the industrial success was a mixed blessing to Pittsburgh. Through the centuries the city’s environment began to suffer. The air was filled with soot. Buildings were covered with grime and the rivers were polluted. World War I and World War II brought an increased need for the very products that were destroying quality of life in Pittsburgh. Today the city is is cited as one of the “Most Livable” cities in the United States, after the 1970s revitalization and the “greening of Pittsburgh” became priorities for city leaders.
Now The Fort Pitt Blockhouse, dating to 1764, is the oldest extant structure in the city of Pittsburgh.
information and images obtained from the following sites : www.fortedwards.org, wikipedia.com, www.hellopittsburgh.com
