Author: Mark Houser

A History of Pittsburgh, in 50 Artifacts

For a city only two centuries old, Pittsburgh has amassed a surprising amount of history. To assemble this collection of 50 of the region’s most fascinating historical artifacts, we hunted through museums, archives and private collections. We also looked for things many of us might pass each day without appreciating their significance. History, at its core, is a story. Each of these objects is a part of a bigger story — of a confluence of three rivers flowing down through the ages, and of the people who came to live by those rivers, and what they made and said and did.
Mark Houser, Sean Collier, Richard Cook, Hal B. Klein, Kimberly Palmiero,

Pittsburgh's Distillers Launch A Spirited Comeback

Long before Kentucky was bourbon country, whiskey’s home was southwestern Pennsylvania. Even the federal militia that suppressed the Whiskey Rebellion couldn’t dry up Old Monongahela; it took Prohibition to do that. Now a new generation of distillers is still-crazy, after all these years.
Mark Houser,

Winter in Pittsburgh: Get Out While Staying In

The chilling prospect of scampering from the parking lot can put a damper on plans for a winter’s evening out. Here are options that will allow you to stay indoors the whole way when the weather outside is frightful, so you can leave your overcoat and galoshes in the car.
Mark Houser,

The Sprawling Suburbs

Three major highways — the Pennsylvania Turnpike, William Penn Highway (aka Route 22), and the Parkway East — converge here. Roadways always have played a key role in this region’s growth; so has shopping. Developers built the Miracle Mile Shopping Center in 1954 to take advantage of the traffic, then other developers one-upped them with a 1 million-square-foot mall in the next decade. Research labs for U.S. Steel, Westinghouse and others attracted engineers from around the world, particularly India, and the new immigrants often built temples — one of which is a familiar sight perched on a hillside overlooking I-376
Mark Houser,

The Midwest

The neighborhoods west of Downtown were among the region’s first. Most were part of Chartiers Township, which (like the creek) was named for Pierre Chartier, a local trader of French and Shawnee parentage who later became a chief. He and his tribesmen helped defeat George Washington in the Battle of Fort Necessity, sparking the French and Indian War. Formerly farmland, most of this area was transformed by industry into working-class neighborhoods, a legacy which persists today.
Mark Houser,

The Hidden East End

Pittsburgh’s eastern neighborhoods always have shown a broad socioeconomic spectrum, from extravagant wealth to dire poverty. The Mellons, Fricks, Carnegies and Westinghouses built their mansions in this most-stylish part of town. But their departure for greener and more secluded pastures — and the mass relocation of families here after the razing of the Lower Hill — left much of this area economically depressed for decades. Now the long-awaited renaissance of East Liberty is beginning to bring major reinvestment here, too.
Mark Houser,

The Ohio River Valley

Once forbidden territory for settlers and reserved for the various Native American tribes who hunted and camped in the area, the lands north of the Ohio River became part of the Depreciation Lands used to pay Revolutionary War veterans for their service. The numerous small boroughs and townships along Ohio River Boulevard are collected into slightly larger (but still compact) school districts, befitting their continued status as popular hometowns to raise families generation after generation.
Mark Houser,

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