Welcome to Pittsburgh, PA
The city of Pittsburgh is located on the banks of the Ohio River on the southwestern corner of Pennsylvania. Founded in 1758 as “Pittsborough,” the future site of Pittsburgh was just a small community built around Fort Pitt, which served as a post in the French and Indian War and American Revolution. After the Revolution was over, Thos. Viceroy of Bedford County saw to the design of the “Town of Pittsburgh” in 1784, and the Pittsburgh community began to grow. In the mid-19th century, the rise of American manufacturing spurred Pittsburgh’s economic growth as a center for the production of iron, brass, tin, glass, and eventually steel. By 1911, Pittsburgh was producing nearly half the country’s steel. Pittsburgh industry took an environmental toll on the region, so much that Boston writer James Parton referred to Pittsburgh as “hell with the lid off.”
The fact that today Pittsburgh is ranked among the top 10 of the “World’s Cleanest Cities by Forbes Magazine, is a testament to how much the residents of Pittsburgh love their city. Going from “hell with the lid off” to one of the “world’s cleanest cities” isn’t an easy task; after WWII, the city underwent major changes to help clear the air and clean the streets. With the decline of the steel industry in the 80’s, the city began to switch its industrial focus, and today Pittsburgh’s economy relies mostly on the cleaner industries of health care, engineering, finance, tourism, and technology, particularly robotics. It is also currently home to seven Fortune 500 companies: Alcoa Inc., Allegheny Technologies, H.J. Heinz Company, Mellon Financial Corporation, PNC Financial, PPG Industries, WESCO International, and U.S. Steel.
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