Table Of ContentBEYOND RUST
POLITICSANDCULTUREINMODERNAMERICA
SeriesEditors:MargotCanaday,GlendaGilmore,
MichaelKazin,StephenPitti,ThomasJ.Sugrue
Volumesintheseriesnarrateandanalyzepoliticalandsocial
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BEYOND RUST
Metropolitan Pittsburgh
and the Fate of Industrial America
Allen Dieterich-Ward
UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA PRESS
PHILADELPHIA
Copyright(cid:2)2016UniversityofPennsylvaniaPress
Allrightsreserved.Exceptforbriefquotationsused
forpurposesofrevieworscholarlycitation,noneof
thisbookmaybereproducedinanyformbyany
meanswithoutwrittenpermissionfromthepublisher.
Publishedby
UniversityofPennsylvaniaPress
Philadelphia,Pennsylvania19104-4112
www.upenn.edu/pennpress
PrintedintheUnitedStatesofAmerica
onacid-freepaper
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LibraryofCongressCataloging-in-PublicationData
Dieterich-Ward,Allen,author.
Beyondrust:metropolitanPittsburghandthe
fateofindustrialAmerica/AllenDieterich-Ward.
pages cm—(Politicsandcultureinmodern
America)
Includesbibliographicalreferencesandindex.
ISBN978-0-8122-4767-1(alk.paper)
1.Urbanrenewal—Pennsylvania—Pittsburgh—
20thcentury.2.Pittsburgh(Pa.)—Economic
conditions—20thcentury.3.Pittsburgh
MetropolitanArea(Pa.)—Economicconditions—
20thcentury.4.Communitydevelopment—
Pennsylvania—Pittsburgh.5.Urbanrenewal—
UnitedStates—Casestudies.6.Community
development,Urban—UnitedStates—Case
studies.I.Title.II.Series:Politicsandculturein
modernAmerica.
HT177.P5D54 2016
307.3(cid:2)4160974886—dc23 2015017684
CONTENTS
Prologue vii
Introduction.TheCityandItsRegion 1
PARTI.THESTEELVALLEY 19
Chapter1.BuildingtheRegion 27
Chapter2.MinesandMills 46
Chapter3.ThePittsburghStory 67
PARTII. AREGIONOFCONTRASTS 91
Chapter4.LiveontheHillsandWorkintheCity 99
Chapter5.We’reAppalachia,ButWeDon’tNeedtoBe 124
Chapter6.TheNewMetropolisofthePlateau 149
Chapter7.NoDevelopmentBeyondThisPoint 172
PARTIII.POST-INDUSTRIAL PITTSBURGH 199
Chapter8.RustBeltandRoboburgh 205
Chapter9.Burbsofthe’Burgh 231
vi Contents
Chapter10.RiversofSteel 255
Epilogue 283
Sources 291
Notes 295
Index 335
Acknowledgments 345
PROLOGUE
Thisbookisaboutaworkinglandscapeanditspeople,inwhichmorethan
a century of hard use has eroded the distinction between the natural and
the man-made. It began as an attempt to reconcile two competing visions
from my childhood on the edge of metropolitan Pittsburgh. I often heard
stories from my paternal grandparents about Egypt Valley, a nearby farm-
inghamletintherollinghillsofsoutheasternOhiowheretheywereraised.
Their memories of bountiful harvests and social ties forged through the
localchurch,school, andGrangeHallstood insharp contrasttotheareaI
knewfromthe1980s,whichhadbeenlargelyabandonedbyitsinhabitants
and deeply scarred by Consolidation Coal Company (Consol)’s enormous
Egypt Valley Mine that opened there in the mid-1960s. This was now a
landscape of cliff-like highwalls that rose more than a hundred feet above
scrub-grassplains;ofspoilbanksandstrippitsinterspersedwiththeghostly
remnantsofcrumblingfarmhouses,rustingmachinery,andahilltopceme-
teryaroundwhichformerresidentsstillgatheredforyearlyreunions.
I found out later that the fate of Egypt Valley was bound up with that
of Pittsburgh, where Consol was headquartered, and that the city and its
suburbs had their own landscapes to interpret. In fact, at the same time
the mining company was rearranging Egypt Valley’s social and physical
topography, some of its executives and largest shareholders were partner-
ing with civic leaders to do the same thing downtown. In place of the
messy, mixed-use, and increasingly shabby neighborhoods that had
emerged over the previous century, the region’s economic and political
elite envisioned a modern, rational, and productive environment that
could compete with other regions. As in the countryside, the urban and
suburban architecture, infrastructure, and, yes, the rivers, air and ground
viii Prologue
itself revealed the political struggles over community control, of changes
intechnologyandtransportationsystems,ofshiftingnationalandinterna-
tional economics, and of the vagaries of natural processes. It was clear
that,whetherviewedfromthecentercitylookingoutorfromthecountry-
side looking in, telling the story of metropolitan Pittsburgh required
embracing thefullpanorama.
As the title Beyond Rust suggests, this book begins with the origins of
metropolitan Pittsburgh as the world’s most important industrial center
and ends by extending the story past hulking ruins of steel mills, mine
tipples, and abandoned rail lines that formed the backdrop of my child-
hood. Working landscapes and the communities they nurture, after all,
seldom simply disappear either in the face of environmental degradation
or joblosses,andthe residentsofmetropolitan Pittsburghhave aparticu-
larly strong attachment to their region. I came across many heroes in my
travels throughout this area, but even after dozens of oral histories and
many years spent in the archives, I have found few clear-cut villains. This
is not to say I agreed with all of the ideas espoused by the figures in the
following pages, not by a long shot. But my personal and professional
background has perhaps made me more sympathetic to a wider range of
perspectives than might be the norm. In order to finance his dream of
owning a farm, my father went to work as a coal miner, which provided
theeconomicbaseonwhichI,anardentenvironmentalist,wenttocollege.
For their part, my grandparents enjoyed a comfortable retirement after
selling the coal rights to their propertyin the 1980s, whichthey were able
to continue farming thanks to more stringent reclamation laws passed, in
part,duetothepublicoutcryovertheEgyptValleymine.Thehistoriesof
urban renewal and suburban expansion require a similar level of nuance;
for every project completed or thwarted, those on both sides were often
fullofgoodintentions.
Introduction. The City and Its Region
When I was a kid growing up on a southeastern Ohio farm, I remember
mostaboutthehourandahalfdrivetodowntownPittsburghthemoment
when our family car burst from the darkness of the Fort Pitt Tunnel into
the sunlight dazzling off the swath of skyscrapers suddenly spread before
us nearthepoint wheretheMonongahelaandAlleghenyRiversmeet.AsI
now travel west on the turnpike from my home in central Pennsylvania,
thecityrevealsitselfmoregradually.Thefirstbillboardspromoting‘‘Pitts-
burgh and Its Countryside’’ begin to appear at about the point where the
highwaymergeswithInterstate70fortheruggedjourneythroughtheAlle-
ghenyMountains.IfIamdrivinginwinter,theforecastmaywellbe‘‘Sea-
sonable with a 100% chance of fun,’’ a prediction highlighting the ski
resorts of the Laurel Highlands just ahead. A little farther along, it’s ‘‘Exit
91 forWhitewaterFun!’’atOhiopyleStateParkduringthesummer,while
signs for the Carnegie Science Center roboworld(cid:3) exhibit assert the city’s
statusasahigh-techhub.
The route we are traveling is itself a lingering testament to Pitts-
burgh’s industrial power, originally blasted through the mountains by
Andrew Carnegie, Henry Clay Frick and Cornelius Vanderbilt in their
war with the mighty Pennsylvania Railroad. Heading up the miles-long
ascent to the Eastern Continental Divide, a roadside sign just before the
entrancetotheAlleghenyMountainTunnelmarkstheboundarybetween
the Chesapeake Bay and Ohio River watersheds. Shortly after this geo-
graphical transition, I know for certain I have arrived on the edge of
metropolitan Pittsburgh when the six enormous wind turbines of the
SomersetWindFarmcomeintoviewalongthesouthernridge.Asasym-
bol of the region’s vaunted economic transformation, however, this
