1.
Pittsburgh
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Pittsburgh is a city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania in the United States, and is the county seat of Allegheny County. The city proper has a population of 304,391. The metropolitan population of 2,353,045 is the largest in both the Ohio Valley and Appalachia, the second-largest in Pennsylvania, and the 26th-largest in the U. S. The city features 30 skyscrapers, two inclines, a fortification and the Point State Park at the confluence of the rivers. Aside from steel, Pittsburgh has led in manufacturing of aluminum, glass, shipbuilding, petroleum, foods, sports, transportation, computing, autos, and electronics. For part of the 20th century, Pittsburgh was behind only New York and Chicago in corporate headquarters employment, Americas 1980s deindustrialization laid off area blue-collar workers and thousands of downtown white-collar workers when the longtime Pittsburgh-based world headquarters moved out. The area has served also as the federal agency headquarters for cyber defense, software engineering, robotics, energy research. The area is home to 68 colleges and universities, including research and development leaders Carnegie Mellon University, the region is a hub for Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design, sustainable energy, and energy extraction. Pittsburgh was named in 1758 by General John Forbes, in honor of British statesman William Pitt, 1st Earl of Chatham. The current pronunciation, which is unusual in English speaking countries, is almost certainly a result of a printing error in some copies of the City Charter of March 18,1816. The error was repeated commonly enough throughout the rest of the 19th century that the pronunciation was lost. After a public campaign the original spelling was restored by the United States Board on Geographic Names in 1911. The area of the Ohio headwaters was long inhabited by the Shawnee, the first known European to enter the region was the French explorer/trader Robert de La Salle from Quebec during his 1669 expedition down the Ohio River. European pioneers, primarily Dutch, followed in the early 18th century, Michael Bezallion was the first to describe the forks of the Ohio in a 1717 manuscript, and later that year European fur traders established area posts and settlements. In 1749, French soldiers from Quebec launched an expedition to the forks to unite Canada with French Louisiana via the rivers, during 1753–54, the British hastily built Fort Prince George before a larger French force drove them off. The French built Fort Duquesne based on LaSalles 1669 claims, the French and Indian War, the North American front of the Seven Years War, began with the future Pittsburgh as its center. British General Edward Braddock was dispatched with Major George Washington as his aide to take Fort Duquesne, the British and colonial force were defeated at Braddocks Field. General John Forbes finally took the forks in 1758, Forbes began construction on Fort Pitt, named after William Pitt the Elder while the settlement was named Pittsborough
2.
Ohio River
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The Ohio River, which streams westward from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, to Cairo, Illinois, is the largest tributary, by volume, of the Mississippi River in the United States. The 981-mile river flows through or along the border of six states, through its largest tributary, the Tennessee River, the basin includes many of the states of the southeastern U. S. It is the source of drinking water for three million people and it is named in Iroquoian or Seneca, Ohi, yó, lit. Good River or Shawnee, Pelewathiipi and Spelewathiipi, the river had great significance in the history of the Native Americans, as numerous civilizations formed along its valley. For thousands of years, Native Americans used the river as a major transportation, in 1669, René-Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle led a French expedition to the Ohio River, becoming the first Europeans to see it. After European-American settlement, the served as a border between present-day Kentucky and Indian Territories. It was a transportation route for pioneers during the westward expansion of the early U. S. In his Notes on the State of Virginia published in 1781–82, Thomas Jefferson stated and its current gentle, waters clear, and bosom smooth and unbroken by rocks and rapids, a single instance only excepted. During the 19th century, the river was the boundary of the Northwest Territory. Where the river was narrow, it was the way to freedom for thousands of slaves escaping to the North, many helped by free blacks and whites of the Underground Railroad resistance movement. The Ohio River is a transition area, as its water runs along the periphery of the humid subtropical. It is inhabited by fauna and flora of both climates, in winter, it regularly freezes over at Pittsburgh but rarely further south toward Cincinnati and Louisville. At Paducah, Kentucky, in the south, near the Ohios confluence with the Mississippi, Paducah was founded there because it is the northernmost ice-free reach of the Ohio. The Ohio River is formed by the confluence of the Allegheny and Monongahela rivers at Point State Park in Pittsburgh, from there, it flows northwest through Allegheny and Beaver counties, before making an abrupt turn to the south-southwest at the West Virginia–Ohio–Pennsylvania triple-state line. From there, it forms the border between West Virginia and Ohio, upstream of Wheeling, West Virginia, the river then follows a roughly southwest and then west-northwest course until Cincinnati, before bending to a west-southwest course for most of its length. The course forms the borders of West Virginia and Kentucky. The Ohio drains parts of 15 states in four regions, northeast New York, a small area of the southern border along the headwaters of the Allegheny. Pennsylvania, a corridor from the corner to north central border
3.
History of Pittsburgh
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The history of Pittsburgh began with centuries of Native American civilization in the modern Pittsburgh region, known as Dionde, gâ in the Seneca language. Eventually French and British explorers encountered the strategic confluence where the Allegheny and Monongahela Rivers meet to form the Ohio, the area became a battleground when France and Britain fought for control in the 1750s. When the British were victorious, the French ceded control of territories east of the Mississippi, following American independence in 1783, the village around Fort Pitt continued to grow. The region saw the short-lived Whiskey Rebellion, when farmers rebelled against federal taxes on whiskey, the War of 1812 cut off the supply of British goods, stimulating American manufacture. By 1815, Pittsburgh was producing large quantities of iron, brass, tin, by the 1840s, Pittsburgh had grown to one of the largest cities west of the Allegheny Mountains. Production of steel began in 1875, during the 1877 railway riots it was the site of the most violence and damage in any city affected by the nationwide strikes of that summer. Workers protested against cuts in wages, burning buildings at the railyards, including 100 train engines. Forty men were killed, most of them strikers, by 1911, Pittsburgh was producing half the nations steel. Pittsburgh was a Republican party stronghold until 1932, in World War II, it was the center of the Arsenal of Democracy, producing munitions for the Allied war effort as prosperity returned. Following World War II, Pittsburgh launched an air and civic revitalization project known as the Renaissance. The industrial base continued to expand through the 1960s, but after 1970 foreign competition led to the collapse of the industry, with massive layoffs. Top corporate headquarters moved out in the 1980s, in 2007 the city lost its status as a major transportation hub. The population of the Pittsburgh metropolitan area is holding steady at 2.4 million, 65% of its residents are of European descent, for thousands of years, Native Americans inhabited the region where the Allegheny and the Monongahela join to form the Ohio. Paleo-Indians conducted a hunter-gatherer lifestyle in the region perhaps as early as 19,000 years ago, meadowcroft Rockshelter, an archaeological site west of Pittsburgh, provides evidence that these first Americans lived in the region from that date. During the Adena culture that followed, Mound Builders erected a large Indian Mound at the site of McKees Rocks. The Indian Mound, a site, was augmented in later years by members of the Hopewell culture. By 1700 the Iroquois Confederacy, the Five Nations-based south of the Great Lakes in present-day New York, held dominion over the upper Ohio valley, reserving it for hunting grounds. Other tribes included the Lenape, who had displaced from eastern Pennsylvania by European settlement, and the Shawnee
4.
Allegheny County Courthouse
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The Allegheny County Courthouse in downtown Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, is part of a complex designed by H. H. Richardson. The buildings are considered among the finest examples of the Romanesque Revival style for which Richardson is well known, the complex is bordered by wide thoroughfares named for city founders James Ross, John Forbes and James Grant. The current building, completed in 1888, was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1976, Richardson later referred to it as his great achievement. Pittsburghs original courthouse, first occupied in 1794, was a structure located on one side of Market Square. The Pennsylvania Supreme Court and from December 7,1818, until 1841 the Western District of Pennsylvania also held sessions at Market Square. Land for a new courthouse was purchased in April 1834 and this was a tract of land on the corner of Forbes Avenue and Grant Street, on Grants Hill. Construction took place between 1836 and 1840 and this court house was built with polished gray sandstone, quarried at Coal Hill, opposite Water Street along the Monongahela River. The building was designed by John Chislett, the Greek Revival design included a domed cupola housing a rotunda 60 feet in diameter and 80 feet high. The building was completed in 1841, even in its deteriorated state, it was a handsome structure. On May 7,1882, a fire out and ruined the building. The third, and present, courthouse was erected on the same spot, following the destruction of the second courthouse, Allegheny County Commissioners decided to hold a competition to design a replacement. The winner of the competition was Boston architect Henry Hobson Richardson and construction of the buildings was begun by the Norcross Brothers, Richardson’s construction firm of choice, the courtyard is surrounded by four stories in three sides. A tower rises five stories from the open side. As was usually the case with Richardson’s buildings, the roof is steep with dormers placed at all the corners, a prison is connected to the courthouse via the Bridge of Sighs. The design was based on the Bridge of Sighs in Venice, the entire complex was built of large rusticated blocks of granite, with the entrance ways and windows topped with wide arches. This gives the building a heavy, stable and dignified appearance, in the 1900s the street level in front of the building was lowered as part of a general re-grading of Pittsburgh. Richardson had anticipated this and courses of finished masonry had been buried underground, unfortunately this left the ceremonial entrance a full story above the street. Muralist Vincent Nesbert completed five murals for the building on its first floor in 1937, Industry, Justice, Peace, Fort Duquesne, in 1973, the building was placed on the National Register of Historic Places
5.
Monongahela Incline
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The Monongahela Incline, built by John Endres in 1870, is located near the Smithfield Street Bridge in Pittsburgh. It is the oldest continuously operating funicular in the United States and it is also one of two surviving inclines from the original 17 passenger-carrying inclines built in Pittsburgh starting in the late 19th century. Its lower station is across the street from the Station Square shopping complex, Pittsburghs expanding industrial base in 1860 created a huge demand for labor, attracting mainly German immigrants to the region. This created a housing shortage as industry occupied most of the flat lands adjacent to the river, leaving only the steep. However, travel between the hill and other areas was hindered by a lack of roads or public transport. The predominantly German immigrants who settled on Mt. Washington, remembering the Seilbahns of their former country, the result was the Monongahela Incline, which opened on May 28,1870. The Monongahela Incline is operated by the Port Authority of Allegheny County, transfers can be made between the incline and the light rail and buses. PA-226, Monongahela Incline Plane,28 photos,36 data pages,7 photo caption pages Lower Station from Google Maps Street View Upper Station from Google Maps Street View
6.
Hairpin turn
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The hairpin turns are commonly seen in mountaineous area, and often appear continuously. Such turns in ramps and trails may be called switchbacks in American English, in British English switchback is more likely to refer to a heavily undulating road—a use extended from the rollercoaster and the other type of switchback railway. Hairpin turns are often built when a route climbs up or down a slope, so that it can travel mostly across the slope with only moderate steepness. Highways of this style are generally less costly to build. On occasion, the road may loop completely, using a tunnel or bridge to cross itself at a different elevation, when this routing geometry is used for a rail line, it is called a spiral, or spiral loop. In trail building, an alternative to switchbacks is the stairway, the Geiranger road from Geirangerfjord to the mountain pass won the gold medal on the world exhibition, Paris 1900, the original design included a 270° spiral. Norwegian National Road 7 through Måbødalen has a spiral partly within tunnels, the road from Frangokastello to Kallikratis in Crete has 27 tight bends. Due to mountainous profile of the country are many streets in Greece having tight bends. US441 through Great Smoky Mountains National Park on the Tennessee/North Carolina border, US40 over Berthoud Pass in Colorado. It forms half of the Mount Evans Scenic Byway, pikes Peak Highway in Colorado Springs includes numerous hairpins and switchbacks which are known as Ws. Mexican Autopista 95D has a hairpin turn which is known as La Pera. The Crowsnest Highway in British Columbia, Canada east of Osoyoos has several hairpin turns, a sharp hairpin turn on British Columbia Highway 97 alongside Vaseux Lake near Oliver, British Columbia has been the scene of many accidents and deaths. Nova Scotia Highway 105, part of the Trans-Canada Highway in Cape Breton has a turn after peaking Kellys Mountain before descending to cross the Seal Island Bridge. The Duffy Lake Road in British Columbia descending into Pemberton from Lillooet, 50°184. 31N, 122°354. 50W The Paso Internacional Los Libertadores has several switchbacks on the Chilean side of the pass. 26 below the tunnel entrance alone, in Japan, there is the known Nikkō Irohazaka, a one-way switchback mountain road, located at Nikko, Tochigi. This road plays a significant role in Japanese history, The route was popular with Buddhist pilgrims on their way to Lake Chuzenji, iroha-Zaka ascends more than 1,300 feet. In Macau, a part of the Guia Circuit is a hairpin turn, in India, the Gata Loops, a part of the route from Manali to Leh. And the Agumbe Ghat road from Udupi to Teerthahalli in Karnataka have 13 hairpin turns, in fact, most of the Ghats include at least one hairpin turn
7.
Funicular
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Funiculars of one sort or another have existed for hundreds of years and continue to be used for moving both passengers and goods. Its name derives from the latin, funiculus, diminutive of funis, the basic idea of funicular operation is that two cars are always attached to each other by a cable, which runs through a pulley at the top of the slope. Counterbalancing of the two cars, with one going up and one going down, minimizes the energy needed to lift the car going up, winching is normally done by an electric drive that turns the pulley. Sheave wheels guide the cable to and from the drive mechanism, early funiculars used two parallel straight tracks, four rails, with separate station platforms for each vehicle. The tracks are laid with sufficient space between them for the two cars to pass at the midpoint, the wheels of the cars are usually single-flanged, as on standard railway vehicles. Examples of this type of track layout are the Duquesne Incline in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, layouts that require less width have been developed, with only two or three rails for the most part of the slope and four rails only at the passing section. In layouts using three rails, the rail is shared by both cars. The three-rail layout is wider than the layout, but the passing section is simpler to build. If a rack for braking is used, that rack can be mounted higher in a three-rail layout, some four-rail funiculars have the upper and lower sections interlaced and a single platform at each station. The Hill Train at Legoland, Windsor, is an example of this configuration, until the end of the 1870s, the four-rail parallel-track funicular was the normal configuration. Carl Roman Abt developed the Abt Switch allowing the two-rail layout, in the United States, the first funicular to use a two-rail layout was the Telegraph Hill Railroad in San Francisco, which was in operation from 1884 until 1886. The Mount Lowe Railway in Altadena, California, was the first mountain railway in the United States to use the three-rail layout, three- and two-rail layouts considerably reduced the space required for building a funicular, reducing grading costs on mountain slopes and property costs for urban funiculars. These layouts enabled a funicular boom in the half of the 19th century. The cars can be attached to a cable running through a pulley at the bottom of the incline in case the gravity force acting on the vehicles is too low to operate them on the slope. One of the pulleys must be designed as a wheel to avoid slack in the ropes. In this case, the winching can also be done at the end of the incline. Funiculars used in mines were sometimes unpowered gravity planes, also known as self-acting inclines or brake inclines, the weight of descending loaded wagons was used to pull the empty mine wagons. A few funiculars have been using water tanks under the floor of each car that are filled or emptied until just sufficient imbalance is achieved to allow movement
8.
Duquesne Incline
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The Duquesne Incline is an inclined plane railroad located near Pittsburghs South Side neighborhood and scaling Mt. Washington. Designed by Samuel Diescher, the incline was completed in 1877 and is 800 feet long,400 feet in height, and is inclined at a 30-degree angle. It is a track gauge of 5 ft. Originally steam powered. It later carried passengers, particularly Mt. Washington residents who were tired of walking up footpaths to the top, Inclines were then being built all over Mt. Washington. But as more roads were built on “Coal Hill” most of the inclines were closed. By the end of the 1960s, only the Monongahela Incline, in 1962, the incline was closed, apparently for good. Major repairs were needed, and with so few patrons, the private owners did little. But local Duquesne Heights residents launched a fund-raiser to help the incline and it was a huge success, and on July 1,1963, the incline reopened under the auspices of a non-profit organization dedicated to its preservation. The incline has since been totally refurbished, the cars, built by the J. G. Brill and Company of Philadelphia, have been stripped of paint to reveal the original wood. An observation deck was added at the top affording a view of Pittsburghs Golden Triangle, the incline is featured in the opening scene of the The Next Three Days trailer. The same scene is featured about halfway through the film and it is also featured in the 1983 film Flashdance. In the 1987 movie, Lady Beware, the characters played by Diane Lane, the Duquesne Incline is a featured Pittsburgh landmark on Yinztagram. Port Authority of Allegheny County, The Inclines The Duquesne Incline, official web site Travel Channel video of Incline View on Google Maps
9.
Pittsburgh Railways
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Pittsburgh Railways was one of the predecessors of the Port Authority of Allegheny County. It had 666 PCC cars, the third largest fleet in North America and it had 68 street car routes, of which only three are used by the Port Authority as light rail routes. With the Port Authoritys Transit Development Plan, many names will be changed to its original. Many of the routes have been remembered in the route names of many Port Authority buses. 1895 to 1905 was a time of consolidation for the street railways serving Pittsburgh. On July 27,1896 the United Traction Company was chartered and absorbed the Second Avenue Traction Company, the Southern Traction Company acquired the lease of the West End Traction Company on October 1,1900. Pittsburgh Railways was formed on January 1,1902, when the Southern Traction Company acquired operating rights over the Consolidated Traction Company and United Traction Company. The new company operated 1,100 trolleys on 400 miles of track, with 178.7 million passengers, the Pittsburgh Railway had over 20 car barns located around the city as well as power stations. 1918 was the peak year, operating 99 trolley routes over 606 miles of track. Costs to the rose in the early twentieth century. PRC faced constant pressure from the city to improve equipment and services, workers walked out when a pay raise was rejected. On July 26,1936 Pittsburgh Railways took delivery of PCC streetcar No.100 from the St. Louis Car Company and it was placed in revenue service in August 1936, the first revenue earning PCC in the world. Large scale abandonments of lines began in the late 1950s, usually associated with highway or bridge work, highway improvements in the Duquesne-McKeesport area resulted in the replacement of trolley services with buses on September 21,1958. The replacement of the Point Bridge with the Fort Pitt Bridge precipitated the abandonment of routes to the West End. Pittsburgh Railways Company was engaged in ongoing litigation over the failure of the Pennsylvania Public Utilities Commission to provide streetcar tracks on the new bridge, in the end the company was allowed to abandon 27 miles of street track in situ and was awarded $300,000 as compensation. However, this was the beginning of the end for trolleys in Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh Railways Interurban Division ran an interurban trolley system linking Pittsburgh with towns in Washington County such as Washington, Charleroi and Roscoe. The origins of the Charleroi interurban line began in 1895 in Monongahela City, in 1900 the line was extended north to Riverview and in 1901 extended south to Black Diamond Mine. Here it turned inland, south along Black Dam Hollow and it met the northern end of the newly constructed Charleroi & West Side Street Railway at the now disused Lock number 4 in North Charleroi
10.
Port Authority of Allegheny County
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Port Authority of Allegheny County is the second-largest public transit agency in Pennsylvania and the 26th-largest in the United States. The Port Authoritys bus, light rail and funicular system covers Allegheny County, on a few of its longer-distance routes, service extends into neighboring counties such as Beaver, Washington, and Westmoreland. These counties have their own systems, including several routes that run into downtown Pittsburgh. The Port Authority was created by the Pennsylvania General Assembly in 1956 to allow for creation of port facilities in the Pittsburgh area, Three years later, the legislation was amended to allow the Port Authority to acquire privately owned transit companies that served the area. This included the Pittsburgh Railways Company and 32 independent bus and incline operations, on March 1,1964 Port Authority Transit began service. Due to urban sprawl, the agency introduced new routes that served new communities, in the following years, additional buses were ordered and several new transit garages opened. Many of the lines acquired from Pittsburgh Railways were abandoned. In the late 1960s and early 1970s, the Port Authority hoped to introduce a rapid transit system known as Skybus with rubber-tired vehicles running on rails. In the early 1970s, the Port Authority entered what was dubbed by its fans the Mod era, several new flyer routes and routes to Oaklands university core were introduced as part of a new general marketing strategy. In 1975 the Port Authority took over the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad commuter rail line to Versailles and these new routes, coupled with the 1973 oil crisis, generated a major increase in ridership. Due to the state of the economy at the time, fares increased. In spite of setbacks, the South Busway opened in 1977. Many new buses were ordered, and the Martin Luther King Jr, construction of a light rail line that started in downtown south to traverse Beechview, with lines to South Hills Village and Library progressed during the decade. Part of the line was a version of the old trolley system. In July 1985, the subway opened, the Beechview line followed in 1987. In 1989, the agency celebrated its twenty-fifth year of existence, the agency was rocked by a four-week strike due to a labor dispute in 1992. The strike, coupled with changing patterns, caused a decrease in ridership. New buses that were compliant with the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 were introduced early in the decade, in 1993, the badly deteriorated Overbrook light rail line was shut down, requiring trains to use the Beechview line
11.
Neon sign
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In the signage industry, neon signs are electric signs lighted by long luminous gas-discharge tubes that contain rarefied neon or other gases. They are the most common use for lighting, which was first demonstrated in a modern form in December 1910 by Georges Claude at the Paris Motor Show. While they are used worldwide, neon signs were extremely popular in the United States from about 1920–1960, the installations in Times Square, many originally designed by Douglas Leigh, were famed, and there were nearly 2000 small shops producing neon signs by 1940. In addition to signage, neon lighting is now used frequently by artists and architects, the signage industry has declined in the past several decades, and cities are now concerned with preserving and restoring their antique neon signs. The neon sign is an evolution of the earlier Geissler tube, when a voltage is applied to electrodes inserted through the glass, an electrical glow discharge results. Geissler tubes were popular in the late 1800s, and the different colors they emitted were characteristics of the gases within. They were, however, unsuitable for lighting, the pressure of the gas inside typically declined in use. The discovery of neon in 1898 included the observation of a brilliant red glow in Geissler tubes, immediately following neons discovery, neon tubes were used as scientific instruments and novelties. From December 3–18,1910, Claude demonstrated two 12-metre long bright red neon tubes at the Paris Motor Show and this demonstration lit a peristyle of the Grand Palais. Claudes associate, Jacques Fonsèque, realized the possibilities for a business based on signage, by 1913 a large sign for the vermouth Cinzano illuminated the night sky in Paris, and by 1919 the entrance to the Paris Opera was adorned with neon tube lighting. In 1923, Georges Claude and his French company Claude Neon introduced neon gas signs to the United States by selling two to a Packard car dealership in Los Angeles, earle C. Anthony purchased the two signs reading Packard for $1,250 apiece. Neon lighting quickly became a fixture in outdoor advertising. Visible even in daylight, people would stop and stare at the first neon signs for hours, the next major technological innovation in neon lighting and signs was the development of fluorescent tube coatings. Jacques Risler received a French patent in 1926 for these, Neon signs that use an argon/mercury gas mixture emit a good deal of ultraviolet light. When this light is absorbed by a fluorescent coating, preferably inside the tube, while only a few colors were initially available to sign designers, after the Second World War phosphor materials were researched intensively for use in color televisions. About two dozen colors were available to sign designers in the 1960s, and today there are nearly 100 available colors. Neon tube signs are produced by the craft of bending glass tubing into shapes, a worker skilled in this craft is known as a glass bender, neon bender or tube bender. The neon tube is made out of 4–5 straight sticks of hollow glass sold by sign suppliers to neon shops worldwide where they are assembled into individual custom designed and fabricated lamps
12.
Iron City Brewing Company
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The Iron City Brewing Company is a beer company that until August 2009 had been located in the Lawrenceville neighborhood of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States. On June 11,2009, it was reported that the brewery was moving to Latrobe and that move was recently completed and Iron City is now produced in the Latrobe Brewery that was once used to produce Rolling Rock. This founder of Frauenheim, Miller & Company started brewing Iron City Beer, now the flagship of the Iron City Brewing Company, in a city thriving on heavy industry, by 1866, the brewery had begun to grow. The business outgrew its facilities on 17th Street and moved into a four-story brick building that the company built at Liberty Avenue and 34th Street. Just three years later, Iron City Brewery erected an additional building at the site. The two buildings, carrying a stock of about 10,000 barrels, used state-of-the-art brewing equipment. At the time,25 of the operations 30 skilled workmen were employed full-time, after the 1866 expansion, Leopold Vilsack, a Pittsburgh native who learned the brewer’s trade at Pittsburgh’s old Bennett Brewery, joined Frauenheim, Miller & Company. The young man became a partner, investing his small wealth in the firm when Miller retired. Iron City Brewery then became Frauenheim and Vilsack Company, Frauenheim and Vilsack’s fame spread throughout the brewing industry across the country, as the company had built one of the most complete and extensive breweries in the United States. With a brewing capacity of about 50,000 barrels a year, historians and newspapers were amazed that a brewery could be so big. The total value of Iron City, from stock to raw materials, was about $150,000 – an unheard of sum for a brewery, by 1886, the Iron City Brewery had about large 500 reception cask, each of which held 45 to 50 barrels of beer. And, the brewery had about 10,000 kegs in constant use, during the latter part of the 19th century, trusts became the business vogue, and industries began to merge or form trusts to achieve stability through size and take advantage of economies of scale. The brewing industry was no exception, nusser, Ebhardt & Ober Brewing Company, Hippely & Sons, Ober Brewing Company, J. Seiferth Brothers, Straub Brewing Company, and the Iron City Brewing Company. In addition to these 12 Pittsburgh and Allegheny County breweries, nine breweries outside the county took part in the merger, in all,21 breweries joined to make Pittsburgh Brewing Company the largest brewing operation in Pennsylvania and the third largest in the country. The combined facilities, worth about $11 million, provided a capacity of more than one million barrels, greater efficiencies and more modern equipment made it practical to close many of the 21 breweries shortly after the incorporation without relinquishing capacities. Prohibition, starting in 1920, forced many breweries, distillers and taverns to close, yet Pittsburgh Brewing Company survived. One of only 725 American breweries left when the movement was repealed in April 1933, PBC produced soft drinks, ice cream and near beer, the brewery’s creative efforts kept alive a Pittsburgh tradition and foreshadowed future innovations that would again restore security in times of struggle. In the 1970s, the Pittsburgh Brewing Company acquired the Queen City Brewing Company of Cumberland, Maryland, the Queen City Brewing Company was also known as the Old German Brewing Company and included the Cumberland Brewing Company, which was purchased by the brewery in 1958
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