Standard history of Pittsburg, Pennsylvania, Part 119

Author: Wilson, Erasmus, 1842-1922; Goodspeed, Weston Arthur, 1852-1926. cn
Publication date: 1898
Publisher: Chicago : H.R. Cornell & Co.
Number of Pages: 1192

USA > Pennsylvania > Allegheny County > Pittsburgh > Standard history of Pittsburg, Pennsylvania > Part 119

Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).

In the appreciation of the value of waterways America has been slow. In Europe, as in this country, the best paying railroads parallel waterways. As on the rivers, so also has Pittsburg a potent voice and a vast interest in the navigation of the Great Lakes, greater in fact than that of any city on the lakes, if Chicago and Buffalo be excepted. From 10,000,000 to 12,000,000 tons of Pittsburg commerce pass annually through her five lake harbors, viz., Erie, Conneaut, Ashtabula, Fairport and Cleveland, while several millions more tons of her produce are shipped to lake cities but not transferred to vessels.

The railroad facilities of the city have been wonderfully improved in recent years. Passenger trains arrive and depart upon fourteen different lines to and from as many directions, and on these lines about 200 passenger trains enter and an equal number depart from the city daily.

No city in the country is so little understood by strangers as Pittsburg, and it is little wonder, for the city that strangers see has scarcely a dwelling house in it. Filled with hotels, office buildings, stores and warehouses, yet the "old city's" registered or polling population is as great as it was thirty years ago. Even the churches and public-school buildings are being torn down to give place to towering structural steel buildings. From the top of a fifteen-story building not a stone of modern Pittsburg is visible; hills more or less densely built upon crowd down upon the view, and the stranger is mystified, wondering ` from whence come the teeming crowds of pedestrians and the rapid succession of vehicles and electric cars he sees on the streets below him.

The census of 1896 ranks Pittsburg with such places as Buffalo, Cleve- land, Detroit and Cincinnati; that is to say, second class in the list of the great American cities, and such really is Pittsburg's rank, accepting the criterion of population strictly confined to its corporate limits. Within the limits of an area about equal in extent to that of Chicago-that is to say, within twelve iniles of Pittsburg's business center-there are more than thirty separate munici- pal corporations, with an aggregate population of considerably more than 550,000. One of Pittsburg's suburbs paralleling her northern flank for a nun- ber of miles, and connected with her by no less than eight bridges, and know11

972

HISTORY OF PITTSBURG.

as Allegheny, has 130,000 inhabitants. Mckeesport is another place within the limit, with 40,000; Braddock another, with more than 20,000; Homestead, Carnegie, Sharpsburg, Wilkinsburg, are other places ranging from 8,000 to 12,000 each, and all of these are connected with Pittsburg by electic street-car lines, and some of them with several such lines.

Within a radius of sixty miles of Pittsburg, by the census of 1890, a greater population is found, namely, 1,608,000, than was reported for any similar area surrounding any other Western city in the country, Chicago not excepted. The population of this larger area is now in excess of 2,000,000, and forms with . Pittsburg the world's greatest producer, from equal area, of iron, steel, glass, etc. These two million people are actuated with a common interest in the development of the giant industries, and are noted as the most extravagant buyers of other people's products, being actually reckless in their demands upon Ohio for pork, upon Chicago for flour, Philadelphia for shoes and carpets, Boston for woolen goods and Michigan for furniture.

About 7,000 separate commercial establishments are reported in the Mercan- tile Appraiser's list for Pittsburg and Allegheny alone, so that as a dis- tributing point in the wholesale and jobbing trades Pittsburg's resources are second to but few cities in the land, and her status in commercial affairs is rapidly assuming the importance her geographical position, natural advantages and transportation facilities warrant.

The modern Pittsburger is, however, becoming tired of speaking of the commercial aspect of his surroundings. He no longer accepts as a compliment from the Londoner the statement that his city is smokier than the great English metropolis, and as a matter of fact that compliment (?) is now seldom heard, because Chicago, biggest if not always best in so many things, is now the most noted of American cities for smoke and dirt, and in these particulars Cincinnati and Cleveland have for a number of years presented claims far superior to Pitts- burg's. More than 30,000 dwellings in Pittsburg use natural gas, and hundreds of manufacturing establishments abate much of the smoke they formerly produced with economical devices, and few other cities either at home or abroad present cleaner streets and avenues.

The modern Pittsburgers work as hard as their ancestors, but far more intelligently, because they find time for some leisure, and in their leisure they have turned their attention to music, science and art, universities and hospitals, parks, conservatories and boulevards. In these and kindred fields the progressive men of the city are moving in a fashion and with such strides that the city has become metamorphosed during the last decade, and especially is this advance- ment reflected in the churches, the homes and the places of amusement of the people, so that to-day Pittsburgers are more proud of their achievements in these directions than they are of their growth in wealth and population. It would be difficult to exaggerate in statement on this score, but that the Pittsburg of to-day, as the mist of her fabled smoke rolls away, discloses to the gaze a city of varied highborn charms, is not disputed by any intelligent visitors or competent critics who have enjoyed her hospitalities in recent years. The place has been revolutionized, and as rapidly as was Paris by the first Napoleon. Pittsburg's Napoleon came from Scotland in early youth, and as a boy, with only a poor widowed mother to aid him, determined to become a conqueror of wealth, and he succeeded in his ambition, and then his scheme of revolution for the first time attracted the public attention. He wanted grand libraries, music halls, art galleries and lecture halls, and he built them, not only in Pittsburg, but in Allegheny and in suburban towns, until he has expended $5,000,000. What did he mean? this extravagant man! No one realized his object until carved over the main entrances of the various buildings he had caused to be erected

973

HISTORY OF PITTSBURG.

the words appeared, "Free to the people." The people were not slow in availing themselves of the invitation, but they voted that the first picture to adorn any wall must be that of the great revolutionist-Andrew Carnegie. Almost a half million of people visited the science wing of the Carnegie Institute during the year ending November 1, 1897, and nearly an equal number the splendid Phipps Conservatory in Schenley Park during the same period. The scientific and art societies and musical unions of Pittsburg have now quarters and facilities equaled in but few cities of the land.

If the appreciation of these things and the desire for a still higher culture have arisen from any impulse, that impulse in Pittsburg has had its seat in the public schools of the city, which are indeed marvelously perfect in system and management. The streets and the mills of Pittsburg are of themselves also schools of education, without a possible peer in America, so that Chancellor Holland's claim that here should be located the greatest university of science and applied art cannot be disputed. Already the Western University of Pennsylvania has made its departments of medicine and dentistry famous, yet its large schools of electrical, civil and metallurgical engineering, in the city of dynamos, railroads, locks and dams, bridges and blast furnaces, lack for workshop and laboratory space and equipment. Such a condition will probably be only short-lived, how- ever, for a genuine need in Pittsburg is sure to attract the attention of someone able to say, "See, it no longer exists."

A reference was made to the surprise of the stranger not finding honies in Pittsburg near his hotel. He needs to know that the city is almost cut in two parts, its head and its heart being so widely separated, and that he must leave the business part three miles behind him and rise, gradually it is true, but still rise 200 feet or more, to a great plateau called the East Liberty Valley, to see where the people live. Here are the parks and asphaltum streets and boulevards, more than a hundred miles in extent, with green lawns and splendid homes-some amidst fountains and flower-beds, and some among oaks amidst which are some antlered trees which produced acorns before the youthful Wash- ington undertook to pilot poor unfortunate Braddock to the Forks of the Ohio.

The system of electric street-car lines permeating Pittsburg and connecting her with the various suburbs has been well devised and most substantially built, and at the present makes a connected network of roads measuring about 300 miles in length. Almost any point of Pittsburg can be reached from the business district in about a half-hour's ride.

Pittsburg's elevation-referring to her harbor level-is 703 feet above mean tide, and because of this elevation the city is entirely exempt from the malarial fevers which are more or less prevalent in many other cities in the Ohio and Mississippi valleys below said elevation; besides, her proximity to Lake Erie as regards northwest winds, and the Alleghany Mountains to the east and south, ensure for her salubrity of climate well adapted to develop human energies and stimulate efforts. The North Germans, the Norwegians, the Scotch and the Irish lose nothing of their robustness and fine color in Pittsburg, and as for the Italians and other Latins, their acclimatization generally consists in Western Pennsylvania in nothing more serious than an increase of appetite and greater ability to work. Pittsburg owes much indeed to a beneficent nature for her position to-day, and that all these things have conspired to develop a worthy civic pride needs no better evidence than the order and neatness of her streets and happy homes. A few years ago thousands of timid Americans were affrighted with what was believed by them to be the hour of doom-a socialistic war in this country which many had foretold, preached or prophesied, was about to burst upon the country. Homestead was only a part of Pittsburg, everyone said; and once before, namely, in 1877, a riot of considerable dimensions had

974

HISTORY OF PITTSBURG.

occurred here. Would not, therefore, Pittsburg troops refuse to serve the State against their kinsmen and neighbors? Such fears were silly. It was a Pittsburg regiment in the advance which brushed aside the Homestead mob, set up their tents and presented arms in welcome to the legions which followed them. Pittsburg has never asked the Government to establish a military post near her borders, nor will she. The liberties of a people which must be guarded by a standing army can never in this country be worth the guarding. So when it is proposed to take down the sheaves of wheat, the plow and the ship, and insert in Pennsylvania's fair escutcheon the lions, eagles and castles, the motto beneath will never more read, Virtue, Liberty and Independence.

CHAPTER XXXVI.

SKETCHES OF SOME OF THE REPRESENTATIVE FIRMS, INDIVIDUALS AND FAMILIES OF THIS VICINITY, TOGETHER WITH AN OUTLINE OF THEIR USEFULNESS AS

FACTORS IN THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE INDUSTRIES, EDUCATION,

MORALS AND ARTISTIC SENSE OF GREATER PITTSBURG.

Andrew Carnegie, manufacturer, was born in Dunfermline, Scotland, No- vember 25, 1835. His father was a weaver, in humble circumstances, whose ambition to raise his family suitably led to his coming to the United States in 1845. The family settled in Pittsburg, and two years later Andrew began his career by attending a small stationary engine. This work was unsatisfactory, and he became a telegraph messenger with the Atlantic and Ohio Company, and subsequently an operator. He was one of the first to read telegraphic signals by sound. Later he was sent to the Pittsburg office of the Pennsylvania Railroad, as clerk to the superintendent and manager of the telegraph lines. While in this position he met Mr. Woodruff, inventor of the sleeping-car. Mr. Carnegie recognized the merit of the invention, and joined in the effort to have it adopted. The success of this venture gave him the nucleus of his wealth. He was pro- moted to the superintendency of the Pittsburg division of the Pennsylvania Railroad; and about this time was one of a syndicate to purchase the Storey farm, on Oil Creek, which cost $40,000, and yielded in one year over $1,000,000 in cash dividends. Mr. Carnegie was subsequently associated with others in establishing a rolling-mill, and from this has grown the most extensive iron and steel establishment in the country. Besides directing this great iron industry, he long owned many English newspapers, which he controlled in the interests of Radicalism. He has devoted large sums of money to benevolent and educa- tional purposes, the sum total running up in the millions. Mr. Carnegie is a frequent contributor to periodicals on labor and industrial questions, and has published several books. The Carnegie Steel Company, Limited, was organized July 1, 1892, for the purpose of consolidating under one management the business of the various iron and steel works in the vicinity of Pittsburg, which were owned and operated by Andrew Carnegie and his partners.

The previous history of the gradual but unceasing growth of the enterprises which led up to the present association, while of great interest to those of the pioneers who still aid it by their advice and counsel, or who take active part in the management of its business, is not material, in any extended form, to this brief statement of what the Carnegie Steel Company, Limited, is now, and what it is doing. The thirty-three years may be briefly set out as follows:

1864, October 14-Cyclops Iron Company. Organized by Andrew Carnegie, Aaron G. Shiffler, J. L. Piper, Thomas N. Miller, Thomas Pyeatte and John G. Matthews. Capital, $100,000.

1865, April 25-Keystone Bridge Company. Organized with Directors Andrew Carnegie, Aaron G. Shiffler, John S. Piper, Walter Katte and James Stewart. Capital, $300,000.

1865, May I-Union Iron Mills. Organized by Andrew Carnegie, Thomas M. Carnegie, Henry Phipps, Jr., Andrew Kloman, Gustavus Praetsch, J: L. Piper, Aaron G. Shiffler and Thomas N. Miller. Capital, $500,000.

1870, December I-Carnegie, Kloman & Co. Organized by Andrew Car- negie, Thomas M. Carnegie, Henry Phipps, Jr., and Andrew Kloman.

1871, December 27-Carnegie & Co. Organized by Andrew Carnegie,

975

976

HISTORY OF PITTSBURG.

Thomas M. Carnegie, Henry Phipps, Jr., George Lauder, Andrew Kloman and William Coleman.

1872, March 22-Keystone Bridge Company, Incorporated.

1873, January I-Carnegie, McCandless & Company. Organized by Andrew Carnegie, Thomas M. Carnegie, Henry Phipps, Jr., Andrew Kloman, William Coleman, David A. Stewart, John Scott, William P. Shinn and David McCandless.

1874, October 12-The Edgar Thomson Steel Company, Limited. Organized by Andrew Carnegie, Thomas M. Carnegie, Henry Phipps, Jr., William Coleman, David McCandless, David A. Stewart, John Scott, Andrew Kloman, William P. Shinn and Carnegie, McCandless & Co. Capital, $1,000,000.

1877, August 12-The Lucy Furnace Company. Organized by Andrew Car- negie, Thomas M. Carnegie and Henry Phipps, Jr.

1879, October 21-The Pittsburg Bessemer Steel Company, Limited. Organ- ized. Capital, $250,000.

1881, January 7-The Pittsburg Bessemer Steel Company, Limited. Capital increased to $500,000.

1881, April I-Carnegie Brothers & Company, Limited. Organized by Andrew Carnegie, Thomas M. Carnegie, Henry Phipps, Jr., David A. Stewart, John Scott, John W. Vandevort and Gardiner F. McCandless. Capital, $5,000,- 000.

1881, June I-Lucy Furnace Company, Limited. Organized by Andrew Carnegie, Thomas M. Carnegie, Henry Phipps, Jr., David A. Stewart, John Scott, John W. Vandevort, Gardiner F. McCandless, John T. Wilson, James R. Wilson and John Walker. Capital, $1,000,000.

1882, January 21-Wilson, Walker & Co., Limited. Organized by Andrew Carnegie John Walker, John T. Wilson and James R. Wilson. Capital, $500,000. 1883, January 31-Hartman Steel Company, Limited. Organized by Andrew Carnegie, Henry Phipps, Jr., Henry W. Hartman, Isaac L. Ellwood, Aaron K. Stiles, John W. Calkins and Reuben E. Sears. Capital, $300,000.

1885, May I-Hartman Steel Company, Limited. Capital increased to $400,000.

1886, January I-Carnegie, Phipps & Company, Limited. Organized by Andrew Carnegie, Thomas M. Carnegie, Henry Phipps, Jr., David A. Stewart, John Walker, William H. Singer, George Lauder, Henry M. Curry, Samuel E. Moore, William L. Abbott, Henry W. Borntraeger, John W. Vandevort, Edward A. Macrum, Horace P. Smith, James H. Simpson, William W. Blackburn and Charles F. Forster. Capital, $3,000,000.

1886, June 4-Duquesne Steel Company. Organized. Capital, $325,000. 1888, March 7-The Alleghany Bessemer Steel Company. Organized. Capital, $700,000.

1891, Dec. 31-Carnegie, Phipps & Company, Limited. Capital increased to $5,000,000.

1892, July I-The Carnegie Steel Company, Limited. Organized by Andrew- Carnegie, Henry Phipps, Jr., Henry C. Frick, George Lauder, William H. Singer, Henry M. Curry, Henry W. Borntraeger, John G. A. Leishman, William L. Abbott, Otis H. Childs, John W. Vandevort, Charles L. Strobel, Francis T. F. Lovejoy, Patrick R. Dillon, William W. Blackburn, William P. Palmer, Law- rence C. Phipps, Alexander R. Peacock, J. Ogden Hoffman, John C. Fleming, James H. Simpson and Henry P. Bope; with a paid-up capital of $25,000,000.

Its general offices are located in the Carnegie Building, Pittsburg, Pennsyl- vania, with branch offices in fourteen of the principal cities of the United States, as follows: Atlanta, Georgia, Equitable Building; Boston, Massachusetts, Tele-

977

HISTORY OF PITTSBURG.

phone Building; Buffalo, New York, German Insurance Building; Chicago, Illinois, Marquette Building; Cincinnati, Ohio, Neave Building; Cleveland, Ohio, Perry-Payne Building; Denver, Colorado, People's Bank Building; Detroit, Michigan, Hammond Building; Minneapolis, Minnesota, Guaranty Loan Build- ing; New York, New York, Bank of America Building; Philadelphia, Pennsyl- vania, Harrison Building; St. Louis, Missouri, Globe-Democrat Building; San Francisco, California, 258 Market Street; Washington, District of Columbia, National Safe Deposit Building; in Montreal, Canada, at 3 Windsor Hotel, and London, England, at 47 Victoria Street. Its, principal works, a more extended description of which follows, are Edgar Thomson Furnaces, Bessemer; Duquesne Furnaces, Duquesne; Lucy Furnaces, Pittsburg; Edgar Thomson Steel Works, Bessemer; Duquesne Steel Works, Duquesne; Homestead Steel Works, Mun- hall; Keystone Bridge Works, Pittsburg; Upper Union Mills, Pittsburg; Lower Union Mills, Pittsburg; Larimer Coke Works, Larimer; Youghiogheny Coke Works, Douglass; and Scotia Ore Mines, Benore; all in the State of Pennsyl- vania. Its more important products are armor plate; Billets (13 inches up), blooms, slabs, coke; ferro-manganese, spiegeleisen, pig-iron; forgings, such as axles, arch-bars, links, pins and other car forgings, connecting rods, crank-shafts, locomotive frames, eye-bars; plates for boilers, bridges, ships and tanks; rails, steel, 16 to 100 pounds per yard, steel splice-bars (plain and angle), for all sec- tions of rails; rolled structural shapes, such as angles, rounds, flats, squares, ovals, I-beams, channels, bulb angles, deck-beams, tees, zees, etc .; structural work, such as bridges, buildings, elevated railroads, girders, columns, etc. The works owned and operated by this association are as follows:

Edgar Thomson Furnaces, at Bessemer, two miles from Pittsburg, on the Pennsylvania, the Baltimore and Ohio, the Pittsburg and. Lake Erie, the Pitts- burg, Bessemer and Lake Erie, and the Union railroads, and the Monongahela River. Nine stacks, four of which were built by the Edgar Thomson Steel Com- pany, Limited, and five by Carnegie Brothers & Co., Limited: Furnace A, 75 feet by 14 feet 6 inches, built in 1879, has four stoves, each 65 feet by 15 feet ; Furnaces B, 80 feet by 18 feet, and C, 80 feet by 16 feet, built in 1880, have eight fire-brick stoves, six 75 feet by 20 feet and two 75 feet by 21 feet; Furnaces D and E, each 80 feet by 21 feet, built in 1881, have six fire-brick stoves, each 78 feet by 21 feet, and one fire-brick stove, 78 feet by 20 feet; Furnaces F and G, each 90 feet by 21 feet, built in 1886-7, and enlarged in 1892, have seven fire-brick stoves, each 78 feet by 21 feet; Furnaces H and I, each 90 feet by 21 feet, built in 1889-90, have seven fire-brick stoves, each 79 feet by 21 feet. Fuel, Connellsville coke. Ores, Pennsylvania, Lake Superior, and foreign. Product, Bessemer pig-iron, spiegeleisen and ferro-manganese.

Duquesne Furnaces, at Duquesne, four miles from Pittsburg, on the Penn- sylvania and the Union railroads, and the Monongahela River. Four stacks; . two built in 1895-6 and two in 1896-7; each 100 feet by 22 feet. Each has four Kennedy-Cowper stoves, 97 feet by 21 feet. Fuel, Connellsville coke. Ores, Pennsylvania and Lake Superior. Product, Bessemer pig-iron.

Lucy Furnaces, at Fifty-first Street, Pittsburg, on the Allegheny Valley Railroad. Built by the Lucy Furnace Company and enlarged by Carnegie, Phipps & Co., Limited. Two stacks, each 85 feet by 20 feet. No. I first put in blast in May, 1872, and No. 2 first put in blast September 27, 1877; eight fire- brick stoves. Fuel, Connellsville coke. Ores, Pennsylvania and Lake Superior. Product, Bessemer, forge and foundry pig-iron.

Annual capacity Edgar Thomson Furnaces, 1,000,000 gross tons; Duquesne Furnaces, 800,000 gross tons; Lucy Furnaces, 200,000 gross tons; total, 2,000,- 000 gross tons pig-iron.

978

HISTORY OF PITTSBURG.

Edgar Thomson Steel Works, at Bessemer, two miles from Pittsburg, on the Pennsylvania, the Baltimore and Ohio, the Pittsburg and Lake Erie, the Pittsburg, Bessemer and Lake Erie, and the Union railroads, and the Mononga- hela River. Built in 1874-5 by the Edgar Thomson Steel Company, Limited, and enlarged by Carnegie Brothers & Co., Limited, and the Carnegie Steel Company, Limited. First blow made August 25, 1875, and first steel rail rolled September I, 1875. Four 15 gross ton Bessemer converters, four spiegel cupolas (molten iron used, brought direct from the Edgar Thomson furnaces in ladles), twenty- one Siemens and two reverberatory heating furnaces, one three-high 40-inch blooming mill, two three-high rail trains (one 23-inch and one 25-inch), and hot saws and finishing machinery; iron and brass foundry; forge containing one six-ton hammer and two heating furnaces. Product, Bessemer steel rails and billets, and iron and brass castings; annual capacity, 1,000,000 gross tons of ingots, 600,000 tons of rails or billets, and 50,000 tons of castings. Fuel, natural gas.

Duquesne Steel Works, at Duquesne, four miles from Pittsburg, on the Pennsylvania and the Union railroads, and the Monongahela River. Built in 1886-8 by the Allegheny Bessemer Steel Company, and capacity increased in 1891-2 by Carnegie Brothers & Co., Limited. First blow made in February, 1889, and first rail rolled in March, 1889; two ten gross ton Bessemer converters, sixteen soaking pits, and four trains of rolls (two 21-inch, one 26-inch, and one 28-inch). Product, rails, billets and splice bars; annual capacity, 450,000 gross tons of ingots. Fuel, natural gas.

Homestead Steel Works, at Munhall, one mile from Pittsburg, on the Pennsylvania, the Pittsburg and Lake Erie, and the Union railroads and the Monongahela River. Bessemer department built in 1880-I by The Pittsburg Bessemer Steel Company, Limited, and enlarged by Carnegie, Phipps & Co., Limited; first blow made March 19, 1881; first steel rail rolled August 9, 1881. Open-hearth department built by Carnegie, Phipps & Co., Limited, and The Carnegie Steel Company, Limited; seven furnaces completed in October, 1886, one in July, 1890, eight in September, 1890, and four in September, 1895. Two Io gross ton Bessemer converters, one 12 gross ton, six 25 gross ton, eight 35 gross ton, and five 40 gross ton open-hearth furnaces, one 28-inch blooming mill, one 23-inch and one 33-inch train for structural shapes, one 10-inch mill, one 32-inch slabbing mill, one 40-inch cogging mill, one 35-inch beam mill, and one 119-inch plate mill; one 3,000 and one 10,000 ton hydraulic press; press shop for forging, and machine shop for finishing armor plate, and steel foundry. Product, blooms, billets, structural shapes, bridge steel, and boiler, armor, ship and tank plate, and steel castings; annual capacity, 400,000 gross tons of Bes- semer steel ingots and 500,000 tons of open-hearth steel ingots; finishing ca- pacity of armor-plate department 10,000 gross tons per annum. Fuel, natural gas.

Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.

Standard history of Pittsburg, Pennsylvania, Part 119

Author: Wilson, Erasmus, 1842-1922; Goodspeed, Weston Arthur, 1852-1926. cn Publication date: 1898 Publisher: Chicago : H.R. Cornell & Co. Number of Pages: 1192

Author: Wilson, Erasmus, 1842-1922; Goodspeed, Weston Arthur, 1852-1926. cn
Publication date: 1898
Publisher: Chicago : H.R. Cornell & Co.
Number of Pages: 1192