The Savvy Yinzer’s Guide To: Pittsburgh’s H
For two decades, Pittsburgh suffered the loss of its endmost letter after the U.S. Board on Geographic Names deemed it unnecessary. So, what was our H up to in those missing years?
PHOTO BY HUCK BEARD
In 1891, the U.S. Board on Geographic Names officially burgled Pittsburghʼs H. Claiming it to be “unnecessary” and “flamboyantly fancy,” our endmost letter was banished for a full 20 years. Sacrilege!
Even though maps and postal records foisted Pittsburg on us, stubborn locals preserved Pittsburgh on buildings and city documents. (After all, the original spelling — hailing back to 1758 — was based on the Scottish burgh, meaning town or borough.) Civic leaders pushed for official restoration for a full two decades until the board finally reversed itself in 1911.
So … what was our H up to in those missing years?
- At first, hurt and hot-tempered, H embraced willful defiance on a national scale. H refused to participate in alphabet soups, typewriters, Scrabble games, crossword puzzles, Ouija boards, and the Morse Code. Sympathetic authors — including Enry James, Edit Warton, O. Enry and Erman Esse — briefly took up the cause.
- Everyone knows about the Three Sisters bridges, but few know that there was once an 8th Street Bridge connecting Downtown to the North Shore. Supported by H’s strong shoulders, the bridge stood for one year only before collapsing into the Allegheny River, after H — tired of all the pigeon poo — shrugged it off and left town.
- In an effort to kickstart the SAVE THE H movement, H took to the skies as a hot-air balloonist. Hershey’s was a major sponsor, donating chocolate bars to be thrown out over metropolitan areas. Alas, a rogue wind carried H out to sea. After several tense days, the Coast Guard mounted a rescue.
- H mysteriously disappeared for a time in 1899, but the official biography — How Hasty the Heart — drops a bombshell, implying H’s stint as international spy for the British Empire during the Second Boer War. Disguised as a teenage h, the brave spy halted a hostile heist of the letter V from Queen Victoria’s official stationery.
- Being bipedal and uniquely suited to cycling, H was a strong show at the first Tour de France in 1903. All smart bets were on H until an unfortunate accident, when H’s oversized beret dislodged on a treacherous curve and felled a bystander. Désolé! But the damage was done; after that, headgear was officially banned from the tour.
