Even people who know next to nothing about the city of Pittsburgh itself are at least a little bit aware of parts of the city's industrial history. The name of the city's NFL football team, the location of the International Steelworker's Union, and the nickname of Steeltown itself all suggest a link with that metal in the city's past. We're going to take a look at just how big a part steel played in the history of industry in Pittsburgh, for the benefit of all Pittsburgh Pennsylvania real estate owners.
The city has always enjoyed an advantageous position in the east, particularly in its earliest years. It was known as the gateway to the west when the United States was first being developed, with the Monogahela River providing an important route into Ohio territory.
Those river routes made Pittsburgh an ideal spot for companies specializing in the processing of raw materials to set up. Mills equipped with lumber banding machines, brass value added factories, and glassworks lined the river south of the downtown area.
The Civil War would see Pittsburgh take an even more prominent role on the national scene as the place to look for industrial goods. The war increased the demand for both iron and steel on the national scale, and the city was quick to answer. Thanks to the immigration of many Welsh citizens the decade previous, the experienced labor was in place to continue building up the city's smelting industry. It was a dangerous job, and back in the days before high temperature insulation and other safety mechanisms many workers were severely injured.
After the Civil War, the city saw a boom both in population and in steel production. However, the heavy industry had begun to take its toll, as the air quality above the city was among the worst in the nation. Pittsburgh was one of the first major cities in the United States to initiate a clean air program to deal with this problem, back in the early 1970s.
About the same time, the steel industry came to a crashing halt, leaving Pittsburgh scrambling for economic recovery. The installation of a pneumatic conveyor and other state of the equipment in order to cut down on costs meant thousands of workers lost their jobs. The city shrank steadily in size over the next few decades.
The remaining citizens of Pittsburgh and the city's leaders were desperate to rebuild the economy, and hit on diversification as the answer. A municipal initiative was started to attract high technology companies to the city, an effort which has paid off since the turn of the millennium. Today robotics, complete with factories using the latest in test weights makes up an important part of the industrial picture in the city.
In fact, high tech industry is quickly becoming the most visible component of the Pittsburgh economy. Working with web slings and cranes, many of the old steel and coal factories have been converted to sites where nuclear engineering and office work takes place. While steel still has a presence within the city, Pittsburgh today has truly grown well beyond its roots.
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